ALS signed “C. G. Jung,” one page, 8.25 x 10.5, personal letterhead, November 25, 1922. Letter to Elsa Barker. In full: “Your book arrived safely. I am much pleased with the idea that you make a serious attempt to explain psychoanalysis to the public. From what I hear, there must be the most extraordinary ideas current among the public. I have not yet read your book, as I am actually overwhelmed with work. But some of my friends will first read it and tell me about it. You see, occasionally, i.e. in busy times, I am reading with more than one head. It must have been a rather arduous task to work through the jungle of the psychoanalytic vegetation. Did you not get quite muddled? Could you understand, what I say? Most of the people don't. Well, I am going to find out about it in your book." Central horizontal and vertical fold, pencil notation next to greeting, and a uniform shade of toning, otherwise fine condition. Provenance: Bonham’s: Estate of Charles Williamson & Tucker Fleming, 2011.
After his break with Freud and the start of World War I, Carl Jung began a period of considerable isolation and alienation from the psychoanalytic community. For the next decade, he worked fervently on what would later become The Red Book, ‘confronting his unconscious,’ diligently recording his dreams and visions in an intense process of self-exploration. Jung claimed that this was the most important period in his life, and that the writings in that manuscript (which remained unpublished until 2009) formed the basis of all his later theorizing. It was during this time that American novelist Elsa Barker sent Jung a copy of her recently published Fielding Sargent, the story of a fictitious man whose psychoanalyst is a composite of Freud, Jung, and Rachmaninoff. Filled with lectures in analysis and studded with quotes from Freud and Jung, Barker was no doubt seeking approval of her work from her idol. An interesting letter to a serious admirer, written during the master analyst’s most intense and solitary period of exploration. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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