Ernest Jones

Soon after their first meeting in 1908, Sigmund Freud’s future biographer, Ernest Jones, initiated a correspondence with the founder of psychoanalysis that would continue until Freud’s death in London in 1939. This volume makes available from British and American archives nearly seven hundred previously unpublished letters, postcards, and telegrams from the three-decade correspondence between Freud and his admiring younger colleague.

First published in 1958, Free Associations is the story of the early life of Ernest Jones. It was prepared for publication by his son Mervyn, who contributed an epilogue covering the period from 1918 (when this book ends) through Jones's death in 1944. This new edition includes a reflective introduction by Mervyn Jones, in which he writes about Ernest Jones "as I could not write in 1958." One of the pioneers in psychoanalysis, Ernest Jones was active in advancing the status as well as the development of the field. In the wider forum of public opinion, he made himself an advocate of the new science-the Huxley, he liked to say, to Freud's Darwin. Huxley had ranked below Darwin in creative originality, and had filled the role of the faithful and indispensably useful follower; and Mervyn Jones believes both Freud and Jones were pleased by the comparison. In addition to his important public and organizational roles (as president of the British and International Psychoanalytic Associations), Jones made significant contributions to psychoanalytic theory. When the Nazis invaded Vienna, he saved much of the assets and archives of psychoanalysis, at great personal risk, and made the arrangements for Freud to come to London. In his introduction, Mervyn Jones presents a sometimes surprising portrait of a thoroughly conventional man in what was then an unconventional profession. He describes tensions and conflicts among the early Freudians, and situates Freudianism with other theories that laid claim to scientific truth in the late nineteenth century. Free Associations presents an evocative picture of Wales and London at the turn of the century, and describes the developing profession of psychoanalysis. It is a dramatic story of success and failure, and of a young man and how he responded to the new, strange ideas of Freud. This book fills in our understanding of the history of psychoanalysis and its founders.

A classic study in the psychoanalysis of literature, Hamlet and Oedipus investigates Hamlet’s mind as it relates to the general psychological conditions foreshadowed in the Oedipus legend. Dr. Jones gives a comprehensive view of the Hamlet literature and shows how the explanation of Hamlet’s mysterious inhibitions lies in his unconscious conflicts. The Hamlet theme is itself an old one, and there is a full discussion of the place of the saga in the complex mythological group to which it belongs.

Brief outline of the history and theory of psychoanalysis, linking it with other branches of knowledge concerning human and animal life.

On the Nightmare is a searching investigation of this mysterious, often terrifying phenomenon. Curiously enough, no disorder in the history of medical science has evoked such consistent superstition on the part of layfolk--even today, when nearly every one of us is still unconsciously superstitious, as our customs of knocking wood, crossing fingers and Friday the Thirteenth readily prove. In explaining the weird nightmare occurrences, all peoples and faiths have invoked mythological creatures: werewolves, vampires, incubi, and succubi (stealthy ravishers of the night), devils, witches, etc. The modern psychological theory of the nightmare is mainly the product of the researches of Sigmund Freud. Dr. Ernest Jones draws for this definitive study upon psychiatry, history, literature and mythology. As a result of these investigations, he has evolved an important theory concerning the relationship between religion, upon whose unconscious significance these superstitions throw light, and the burden of guilt inherited by everyone "from the deepest stirrings of mental life, the primordial conflict over incest." As President of the International Psychoanalytical Association and author of numerous widely-read books and articles, he is one of the world's leading authorities on psychiatry and related studies.