The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud
 Cover of volume one of the first edition | |
| Author | Ernest Jones |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Sigmund Freud |
| Published |
1953 (Basic Books) 1961 (abridged edition) |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages |
428 (vol. 1) 512 (vol. 2) 537 (vol. 3) 670 (abridged edition) |
| ISBN | 978-0140170856 |
The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud is a biography of Sigmund Freud by Ernest Jones. The most famous biography of Freud, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud was originally published in three volumes (first volume 1953, second volume 1955, third volume 1957); a one-volume edition abridged by literary critics Lionel Trilling and Steven Marcus followed in 1961. Although his biography has retained its status as a classic, Jones has been criticized for presenting an overly-favorable image of Freud.
Scholarly reception
Psychologist Hans Eysenck, in Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire (1985), calls The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud the "most famous" of the well-known biographies of Freud, but sees it as "more a mythology than a history, leaving out as it does nearly all the warts and making many alterations to the portrait by suppressing data and items which might reflect unfavourably on Freud."[1]
Historian Peter Gay, in Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988), writes that Jones's work remains "the classic biography of Freud" and "contains many astute judgments" despite its author's graceless style and tendency to "separate the man and the work." Gay sees the most serious charge against Jones as being "malice against other followers of Freud", a supposedly unconquerable jealousy that led him to be scathing about rivals such as Sándor Ferenczi. Gay believes that the charge has less merit than is commonly thought, and that "Jones's final verdict on Ferenczi, which heavily hints that in his last years Ferenczi was subject to psychotic episodes, and to which strong exception has been taken, largely echoes the opinion that Freud expressed in an unpublished letter to Jones."[2]
Philosopher Richard Wollheim calls Jones's work a "great" biography, but observes that while Jones had "lived within Freud's intimate circle for several decades", he was able to write only what Anna Freud found acceptable. Wollheim comments that, "Jones was even-handed between life and thought, and the result is a huge sandwich in which the two alternate."[3]
Sociologist Christopher Badcock, writing in 1992, states that although "routinely denigrated by more recent competitors, Jones's work remains unrivalled and is the only biography to include summaries of all Freud's works known at the time of writing."[4]
Author Richard Webster writes in Why Freud Was Wrong (1995) that while Jones wrote with the avowed objective of correcting a "mendacious legend" about Freud, Jones replaced that negative with a positive legend. Webster believes that Jones, "did not hesitate to retouch reality wherever it seemed to conflict with the portrait which he sought to create."[5]
Historian of science Roger Smith writes that Jones's work is an "official biography, replaced in detail but still of interest".[6]
References
Footnotes
- ↑ Eysenck 1986. p. 213.
- ↑ Gay 1995. pp. 743-744.
- ↑ Wollheim 1991. pp. xxi-xxii.
- ↑ Badcock 1992. pp. 175-176.
- ↑ Webster 2005. p. 14.
- ↑ Smith 1997. p. 989.
Bibliography
- Books
- Badcock, Christopher (1992). Essential Freud. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-17774-4.
- Eysenck, Hans (1986). Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-022562-5.
- Gay, Peter (1995). Freud: A Life for Our Time. Harmondsworth: Papermac. ISBN 0-333-48638-2.
- Smith, Roger (1997). The Norton History of the Human Sciences. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31733-1.
- Webster, Richard (2005). Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis. Oxford: The Orwell Press. ISBN 0-9515922-5-4.
- Wollheim, Richard (1991). Freud. London: FontanaPress. ISBN 0-00-686223-3.