The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud
The definitive 24-volume English translation of Freud's complete works.
The imaginary model which I have always kept before me is of the writings of some English man of science of wide education born in the middle of the nineteenth century.
The Standard Edition gathers Freud's psychological writing into twenty-four volumes, translated under James Strachey with Anna Freud and assisted by Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson, published between 1953 and 1974. Each work carries an editorial introduction fixing its date and place in Freud's development, footnotes tracking additions and deletions across the German editions, cross-references, and bibliographies; a final volume supplies the indexes. This is the text most English-language analytic training, citation, and PEP-Web referencing still runs on.
Strachey's rendering remains contested. He fixed a Latinate and Greek technical vocabulary (ego and id for das Ich and das Es, cathexis for Besetzung, parapraxis for Fehlleistung) where Freud often wrote plainer German, giving the prose a scientific evenness some readers find estranges Freud's voice. Knowing where the translation hardens Freud's terms is part of reading him in English. Vintage (Hogarth Press) now publishes the set.
About the authors
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (1856 to 1939) was an Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis. Born in Freiberg, Moravia, he moved to Vienna in 1860 and worked there for most of his life, training as a physician and developing psychoanalysis as both a theory of mind and a method of treatment. His works included The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), and Civilisation and its Discontents (1931). After Nazi forces took control of Austria in 1938, he emigrated to London, where he died in 1939.
James Strachey
James Strachey was a British psychoanalyst and translator who studied at Cambridge and moved among the Bloomsbury circle. In 1920 he travelled to Vienna for analysis with Sigmund Freud, and with his wife Alix he became one of Freud's principal English translators. He served as general editor and chief translator of the Standard Edition, the twenty four volume English Freud. His Latinate coinages, including ego, id, cathexis, and parapraxis, shaped and later divided Anglophone psychoanalytic vocabulary. He died in 1967.
James Strachey
James Strachey was a British psychoanalyst and translator who studied at Cambridge and moved among the Bloomsbury circle. In 1920 he travelled to Vienna for analysis with Sigmund Freud, and with his wife Alix he became one of Freud's principal English translators. He served as general editor and chief translator of the Standard Edition, the twenty four volume English Freud. His Latinate coinages, including ego, id, cathexis, and parapraxis, shaped and later divided Anglophone psychoanalytic vocabulary. He died in 1967.
Details
- 1953
- 1953
- German
- James Strachey
- The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis
- The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis