The Long Road to Dream Interpretation: Freud's Book in English

Sigmund Freud's groundbreaking work, "Die Traumdeutung, " faced a bumpy journey when it was translated into English as "The Interpretation of Dreams. " The translation, handled by A. A. Brill, didn't happen overnight. Instead, it was a decade-long process filled with obstacles. One major hurdle was the fear of obscenity charges in Britain, which led to the first edition being censored by its London publisher in 1913. The translation also faced issues related to the politics of translation and the standardization of psychoanalytic terms in Britain. When the Revised Standard Edition (RSE) was launched, these earlier challenges came to light for the first time. The book's reception varied in both Britain and the United States, with different editions being released over time. One particularly noteworthy event was the covert and controversial reediting of the third English edition in 1933. This history casts a long shadow over the RSE.