Sigmund Freud's letters to his closest friend, Wilhelm Fliess, are probably the single most important group of documents in the history of psychoanalysis. The letters date from 1887 to 1904, a period that spans the birth and development of psychoanalysis. During the seventeen years of the correspondence Freud wrote some of his most revolutionary works: Studies on Hysteria, The Interpretation of Dreams, "The Aetiology of Hysteria", and the famous case study of Dora. Presented here, without any excisions, are 133 documents never before made public and 139 that previously were published only in part.
“This new edition presents Freud in a fuller, richer, less idealized way; his human qualities emerge and he appears both greater and more understandable… Here we may be unobtrusive observers of the personal dynamics of one of the great acts of cultural creation in history as Freud produced what was to become a towering imaginative structure.”
– Times Literary Supplement
“The publication of The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess represents an important moment of truth... The general public can now evaluate at first hand the evidence bearing on the various controversial issues raised by the letters... Of more lasting importance, however, is the insight this new edition provides into the creative process at work in the formation of a fundamentally important scientific theory.”
– New York Times Book Review