The Secret Self; Psychoanalytic Experiences in Life and Literature

New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953. First Edition. Cloth. Fine/Fine. Small 8vo (8" x 5 1/2"), beige cloth with maroon lettering on spine & large black simulated signature of "Theodor Reik" on front cover, Mylar-protected lettered dust jacket (unclipped), plastic sleeve, [vi] + 329 pages. Brilliant essays by a remarkably insightful psychoanalyst on Shakespeare, Goethe, Sleeping Beauty, sexual symbolism (what else!), and other subjects. The author's dissertation was a psychoanalytic study of Flaubert. Theodor Reik (German; 1888, Vienna - 1969, New York) was a Jewish psychoanalyst who trained as one of Freud's first students in Vienna, Austria, and became a pioneer of lay analysis in the United States. Reik is best known for psychoanalytic studies of psychotherapeutic listening, masochism, criminology, literature, and religion. The Secret Self (1952) comprises a number of essays of psychoanalytic literary criticism, in which Reik tried to decipher the unconscious fantasies and impulses lying beneath literary works. In this book, Reik continued to develop his interest in the relationship between his own personality and his work, exploring how his internal conflicts shaped his interpretations of literary works.--Wikipedia EXCEPTIONAL CONDITION. VERY UNCOMMON title with fascinating essays.