In the meantime let’s stick together: Letters to his children

Although Freud’s devotion to his children has long been recognized (Jones 1953–57, 2:387–89), these letters to the five oldest movingly and abundantly testify to it. With a few exceptions (mostly notes to his grandchildren), Freud wrote all of the letters in this collection when his children were taking their first steps towards independence or had become adults. Little of the children’s part of the correspondence is available, and what the editor excerpts justifies his decision to use it selectively. Consequently, this collection almost exclusively presents Freud as the writer of letters to his adult children and their spouses. Almost all of his letters to these family members are included; only a few published elsewhere (e.g., Freud 2002) that do not concern the father-child relationship have been omitted