Freud's Wizard: The Enigma of Ernest Jones (Hardcover)

'Brenda Maddox tells Ernest Jones's story with economy and verve, mixing relevant details of his personal life with brilliant insights into the history of psychoanalysis'

‘Maddox’s book is sober, judicious and excellent on the tribulations suffered by psychoanalysis in a society that kept bodily functions a secret’

‘Absorbing… It is a measure of the quality of [Maddox’s] writing that one finishes by sharing her opinion that, warts and all, Jones was a remarkable man’

‘Maddox makes a persuasive case for the possibility that Freud’s ideas might never have achieved global penetration without Ernest Jones’

‘Brenda Maddox has a gift for tangential approaches. She hits on an angle that has been missed, or she unearths a minor figure who leaps to life irresistible as she writes. She has done it again with Ernest Jones, Freud’s disciple and biographer… Maddox pulls no punches in dealing with either the wizard or his master, and she kept me entertained from start to finish with the very odd story she has to tell’

‘Maddox’s lesson of [Jones’] useful, compromised life is an object lesson in biographical advocacy. She speaks well for the slippery Jones, and makes me wish I had met him’

‘The “dark inconsistencies” of Jones’s sexuality perplexed Freud, who did not have the benefit of this biography to aid his understanding of a quirkily quixotic intellectual and emotional adventure.’

‘A good introduction to the turbulent and often strange beginnings of psychoanalysis’

Ernest Jones was a born empire builder, who imported the intellectual ferment of early twentieth-century European analysis to our shores. In 1938 he daringly flew to Vienna to rescue Freud from the Nazi threat. With the media frenzy that greeted Freud’s arrival in England, psychoanalysis hit the mainstream. When Jones subsequently wrote the definitive, three-volume biography of his mentor, Freud’s trailblazing reputation was secured.

Jones himself was a remarkable man, mercurial and quixotic. The son of a colliery clerk in South Wales his insinuation into the inner circle of psychoanalysis is an improbable story. Likewise, the devastating, if dubious, sexual success he enjoyed with female patients caused intrigue among his contemporaries. As Jones’ analytic reputation reached new heights, rumours as to what Freud dubbed his ‘dark inconsistencies’ grew.

Award-winning biographer Brenda Maddox insightfully and gracefully breathes life into this enigmatic character. Freud’s Wizard is a riveting resurrection of a critical, heretofore overlooked, architect of our modern intellectual landscape.