Special Collections > Mortimer Rare Book Collection > Online Exhibits > A Story of Their Own > Freudian Connections
Freudian Connections
Sigmund Freud. An Autobiographical
Study. Translated by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press, 1936. Second
edition. Presented by Jane Henle ’34.
Alix and James Strachey went to Vienna in 1920 where they became the first couple to be analyzed by Sigmund Freud. They also began to translate Freud’s writings. In 1924 James suggested to Leonard Woolf that the Hogarth Press take over the publication of the International Psycho-analytical Institute. Thus, the Press became the authorized publisher for Sigmund Freud in England and was the first to make psychoanalytic theory available in English. Virginia Woolf met Freud, but was never psychoanalyzed by him. Her treatments included rest cures and milk and meat diets for mania and depression, teeth pulling (a recommended cure at the time for high fevers and chronic fatique syndrome), and a variety of sedatives for insomnia (chloral hydrate and veronal mixed with potassium bromide). In 1939 after reading Freud’s theory of ambivalence she wrote about her love-hate feelings for her father in “A Sketch of the Past.” This candid memoir was undertaken as a relief from writing Roger Fry’s biography.
As Sylvia Plath grew more anxious during the summer of 1953, she turned to her copy of Freud’s Basic Writings for answers. Index entries for demoniacal hallucinations and paranoia are underlined. Ruth Beuscher, who became Plath’s trusted therapist at McLean Hospital, was a follower of Freud.
Sigmund Freud. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. Translated and edited, with an introduction by Dr. A. A. Brill. New York: The Modern Library, 1938. From the library of Sylvia Plath.
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Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College
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