Sigmund Freud
The Ego and The Id
In 1923, in this volume, Freud worked out important implications of the
structural theory of mind that he had first set forth three years earlier in
Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The Ego and the Id ranks high among the
works of Freud's later years. The heart of his concern is the ego, which he
sees battling with three forces: the id, the super-ego, and the outside world.
Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his
lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: The Standard Edition of
the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud under the general
editorship of James Strachey.
Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words
and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and
explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest
were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard
Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing
versions.
Newly designed in a uniform format, each new paperback in the Standard
Edition opens with a biographical essay on Freud's life and work along
with a note on the individual volumeby Peter Gay, Sterling Professor of
History at Yale.
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