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Freud's Wizard: Ernest Jones and the Transformation of Psychoanalysis
The saturation of the English-speaking world with Freudian psychoanalytic concepts was due largely to one brilliant analyst, Ernest Jones. As Freud’s disciple, colleague, biographer, and empire builder, he led the international psychoanalytic movement and moved its vortex from Vienna to London, and its influence to Toronto, New York, and Boston. While negotiating the ferocious politics and rivalry of the movement, Jones also managed an imposing series of liaisons that included an heiress and her maid, analysands, and a “Druid Bride.” Jones, unlike Freud, never had to wonder “what do women want?” From Jones’s first encounter with Freud’s writings as a medical student to the eve of World War II, when he orchestrated the master’s escape to London a hairsbreadth away from the death camps, Maddox lays bare a dark and creative era, and a colorfully flawed but powerfully influential man.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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About the author
Brenda Maddox
27 books55 followersBorn in Brockton, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, in 1932, Brenda Lee Power Murphy graduated from Harvard University (class of 1953) with a degree in English literature and also studied at the London School of Economics. She was a book reviewer for The Observer, The Times, New Statesman, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and regularly contributed to BBC Radio 4 as a critic and commentator. Her biographies of Elizabeth Taylor, D.H. Lawrence, Nora Joyce, W.B. Yeats, and Rosalind Franklin have been widely acclaimed. She received the Los Angeles Times Biography Award, the Silver PEN Award, the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, and the Whitbread Biography Prize.
Maddox was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999.
Maddox lived in London and spent time at her cottage near Brecon, Wales, where she and her husband, Sir John Maddox (d. 2009), were actively involved within the local community. She was vice-president of the Hay-on-Wye Festival of Literature, a member of the Editorial Board of British Journalism Review, and a past chairman of the Broadcasting Press Guild. Maddox had two children and two stepchildren.
Her biography of the scientist James Watson was published in 2016.
(from Wikipedia)
Maddox was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999.
Maddox lived in London and spent time at her cottage near Brecon, Wales, where she and her husband, Sir John Maddox (d. 2009), were actively involved within the local community. She was vice-president of the Hay-on-Wye Festival of Literature, a member of the Editorial Board of British Journalism Review, and a past chairman of the Broadcasting Press Guild. Maddox had two children and two stepchildren.
Her biography of the scientist James Watson was published in 2016.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 5, 2016
The story of "Freud and Jung" was well-established in the public consciousness even before the recent film A Dangerous Method. Less known, though, is the story of "Freud and Jones". As an undergraduate, I remember being intrigued by the presence of a Welshman in various group photographs of the early psychoanalysts; I was aware that Jones had rescued Freud from the Nazis in Vienna, and that he had written a biography of Freud, but very little beyond that. Maddox's highly-readable biography fills a gap in my knowledge which I was barely aware was so wide
Jones was first and foremost indeed "Freud's Wizard", but he was much more than just a sidekick. Laurence Olivier's film of Hamlet owes a debt to Jones' book Hamlet and Oedipus; Jones' three-volume biography of Freud (started at the age of seventy and concluded shortly before the end of his own life) was a publishing sensation; and as President of the British Psycho-Analytical Society and the International Psychoanalytic Association he was tireless in his efforts to establish psychoanalysis, and to rescue Jewish colleagues in 1930s Europe.
Jones never quite became Freud's heir; as Maddox notes, that position would eventually be taken by Freud's daughter Anna. Despite his respect for Freud, and, at one stage, a plan to woo Anna, Jones found himself unable to disagree with criticisms of Anna made by Melanie Klein. Psychoanalysts are not shy about pointing out each other's supposed character flaws in ways that are frank to the point of rudeness; correspondence between Freud and Jones is at times remarkably techy, and occasionally even hostile. Jones' suggestion that Anna had been "imperfectly analysed" caused Freud particular offence. Jones in his turn was outraged when a posthumous foreword by Freud appeared which named David Eder, rather than Jones, as the first to practise psychoanalysis in the English-speaking world.
Jones was raised in Wales, but his medical training was completed at University College Hospital in London. As a doctor, he found it difficult to get established, and his career nearly came to an early end when he was accused of sexual behaviour while examining children at a school. The case was "laughed out of court", according to Maddox; the testimony of lower-class children was not taken seriously. Discovering Freud, and meeting Jung in Amsterdam, radically changed his prospects.
There were several loves in his life: an early engagement was broken off, and he entered into a relationship with Loe Kann, a wealthy Dutch emigrée. Today we would describe her as Jones' "partner"; Maddox uses the contemporary terms "common law wife" and "mistress". Kann was addicted to morphine due to a kidney condition and went to Freud for analysis; the treatment was successful, but Kann then left Jones for another man (an American, also called Jones). Maddox inaccurately describes Kann's brother Jacobus as having "founded the Jewish Chronicle"; in fact, he financed the purchase of the paper in 1907.
Jones then took up with Loe's servent Lina (surname unknown), before marrying a young Welsh poet and composer named Morfydd Owen. Owen died from complications from appendicitis less than two years later; Jones then was warned off Anna Freud by Sigmund, and Hanns Sachs fixed him up with Kitty Jokl (Jokl's sister Grete Ilm, made by a typo or slip into "Gretl Ilm", is described as Sachs' "mistress"). Jokl very quickly became Jones' second wife and assistant, and their children included the novelist Mervyn Jones. Another interesting family connection is that Jones' sister married the surgeon Wilfred Trotter (later honorary surgeon to the king), with whom Jones had been in practice for a while.
Maddox tells us that Jones was wary of getting too close to the Bloomsbury crowd, but he worked with James and Alix Strachey on the translation of Freud's works, and his biography of Freud was published in the UK by the Hogarth Press. Jones also treated Frieda Lawrence, wife of D.H.; Jones was "perhaps the only person in London who knew of Frieda's colourful past in Munich and her affair with Otto Gross" (Gross had also impregnated Frieda's sister Elsa von Richthofen; perhaps to avoid playing "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", Maddox doesn't mention Elsa's affairs with Max Weber and his brother Alfred).
Maddox's account of the writing and publication of Jones' biography of Freud is unexpectedly compelling. Jones' wife's assistance was invaluable, especially as Jones could not read the gothic script of much of the correspondence. Apparently there were concerns about British libel law (even today the bane of free speech). The distinguished lawyer Peter Calvocoressi recommended that the sentence "Jung is crazy" would have to go, but that accusing Jung of anti-Semitism was merely "risky".
Jones was first and foremost indeed "Freud's Wizard", but he was much more than just a sidekick. Laurence Olivier's film of Hamlet owes a debt to Jones' book Hamlet and Oedipus; Jones' three-volume biography of Freud (started at the age of seventy and concluded shortly before the end of his own life) was a publishing sensation; and as President of the British Psycho-Analytical Society and the International Psychoanalytic Association he was tireless in his efforts to establish psychoanalysis, and to rescue Jewish colleagues in 1930s Europe.
Jones never quite became Freud's heir; as Maddox notes, that position would eventually be taken by Freud's daughter Anna. Despite his respect for Freud, and, at one stage, a plan to woo Anna, Jones found himself unable to disagree with criticisms of Anna made by Melanie Klein. Psychoanalysts are not shy about pointing out each other's supposed character flaws in ways that are frank to the point of rudeness; correspondence between Freud and Jones is at times remarkably techy, and occasionally even hostile. Jones' suggestion that Anna had been "imperfectly analysed" caused Freud particular offence. Jones in his turn was outraged when a posthumous foreword by Freud appeared which named David Eder, rather than Jones, as the first to practise psychoanalysis in the English-speaking world.
Jones was raised in Wales, but his medical training was completed at University College Hospital in London. As a doctor, he found it difficult to get established, and his career nearly came to an early end when he was accused of sexual behaviour while examining children at a school. The case was "laughed out of court", according to Maddox; the testimony of lower-class children was not taken seriously. Discovering Freud, and meeting Jung in Amsterdam, radically changed his prospects.
There were several loves in his life: an early engagement was broken off, and he entered into a relationship with Loe Kann, a wealthy Dutch emigrée. Today we would describe her as Jones' "partner"; Maddox uses the contemporary terms "common law wife" and "mistress". Kann was addicted to morphine due to a kidney condition and went to Freud for analysis; the treatment was successful, but Kann then left Jones for another man (an American, also called Jones). Maddox inaccurately describes Kann's brother Jacobus as having "founded the Jewish Chronicle"; in fact, he financed the purchase of the paper in 1907.
Jones then took up with Loe's servent Lina (surname unknown), before marrying a young Welsh poet and composer named Morfydd Owen. Owen died from complications from appendicitis less than two years later; Jones then was warned off Anna Freud by Sigmund, and Hanns Sachs fixed him up with Kitty Jokl (Jokl's sister Grete Ilm, made by a typo or slip into "Gretl Ilm", is described as Sachs' "mistress"). Jokl very quickly became Jones' second wife and assistant, and their children included the novelist Mervyn Jones. Another interesting family connection is that Jones' sister married the surgeon Wilfred Trotter (later honorary surgeon to the king), with whom Jones had been in practice for a while.
Maddox tells us that Jones was wary of getting too close to the Bloomsbury crowd, but he worked with James and Alix Strachey on the translation of Freud's works, and his biography of Freud was published in the UK by the Hogarth Press. Jones also treated Frieda Lawrence, wife of D.H.; Jones was "perhaps the only person in London who knew of Frieda's colourful past in Munich and her affair with Otto Gross" (Gross had also impregnated Frieda's sister Elsa von Richthofen; perhaps to avoid playing "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", Maddox doesn't mention Elsa's affairs with Max Weber and his brother Alfred).
Maddox's account of the writing and publication of Jones' biography of Freud is unexpectedly compelling. Jones' wife's assistance was invaluable, especially as Jones could not read the gothic script of much of the correspondence. Apparently there were concerns about British libel law (even today the bane of free speech). The distinguished lawyer Peter Calvocoressi recommended that the sentence "Jung is crazy" would have to go, but that accusing Jung of anti-Semitism was merely "risky".
September 14, 2012
Brenda Maddox's "Freud's Wizard: Ernest Jones and the Transformation of Psychoanalysis" (Da Capo Press, 354 pages, $26) poses a fundamental question about biography: To what extent do ideas, or, more specifically, the spread of ideas, depend on personalities? Freud himself wondered whether or not his new "science" of psychoanalysis would travel beyond turn-of-the century Vienna, Austria, and become something more than an exclusively Jewish enterprise.
At first Carl Jung seemed to be the gentile vehicle for Freudian ideas, but he became a rival. Ernest Jones, a Celtic Welshman turned Anglophile, proved an antidote to renegades such as Jung who broke out of Freud's tight circle and sought to establish their own therapeutic regimes.
Jones was a kind of wizard (his mother had wanted to name him Merlin). He was a good mobilizer with a knack for establishing organizations that furthered Freudian ideas. He wrote in an accessible style that enticed influential readers — his book on Hamlet and Oedipus impressed both James Joyce and Laurence Olivier.
But Jones was not merely a popularizer. He had a magnetic personality that attracted women. He courted Freud's daughter, Anna, and though his suit was not successful, it demonstrated how powerfully he wished to impose his personality on Freud's movement as well as his intimates. Jones's erotic adventures often got him into trouble, but Freud understood that Jones was the indispensable disciple, worth any amount of trouble.
Jones repaid his mentor's trust during Freud's moment of peril in Vienna. Ms. Maddox begins her biography by tersely evoking Jones's mission in March 1938 to save the founder of psychoanalysis. Hitler had entered Vienna the day before. His views of psychoanalysis as a Jewish virus were well known. Jones understood that if Freud did not leave Vienna he might well be murdered. Commercial flights to Vienna from London had been canceled. The enterprising Jones hired a private plane and managed to enter the city, only to be arrested. Fluent in German, he talked his way out of incarceration. It took him nearly a week to convince Freud to abandon the city that meant everything to him.
Freud did not relent until Jones promised to spirit his master's immediate family and associates out of Nazi-occupied Vienna. Not only did Jones succeed in this daunting task, he got the British government to approve work permits for these refugees at a time when public opinion in Britain was opposed to exiles whose arrival increased competition for precious jobs.
Where did Jones get his chutzpah? He liked to joke that he was a "Shabbes-Goy" who does the work Jews are not allowed to perform on the Sabbath." Jones had grown up in Wales at a time when a bright boy yearned to assimilate into British culture. Yet he never lost his Welsh character, a feistiness he shared with his hard-working father.
Jones rejected a place at Oxford for medical studies in London and Cardiff, Wales. Interested in brain neurology, Jones found Freud's ideas captivating and adapted them to his own purposes. That Jones became Freud's biographer, writing an elegant three-volume biography, seems inevitable in retrospect. The Freud biography perfectly expressed Jones's desire to honor his master even as Jones advanced his own life's work.
Jones's story, Ms. Maddox notes, has been told before by Jones's friend Vincent Brome, and she might have added another word or two about her predecessor, an author of several biographies to whom many of us are deeply indebted. But Ms. Maddox is right that much new material has appeared since Brome published his biography in 1982, and she pays handsome tribute to the scholars who have enriched her work.
Ms. Maddox herself has a special place among current biographers. She has a knack for picking figures like Nora Joyce, for example, who are slightly off-center, but without whose presence the story of a James Joyce or a Sigmund Freud would be immeasurably diminished. Her approach to biography did not seem essential when she first began work on Nora Joyce. Richard Ellmann, the distinguished Joyce biographer, doubted Ms. Maddox would have enough material for a full-scale biography. But Ellmann acknowledged that Ms. Maddox had proved him wrong.
While Ms. Maddox does not face the same skepticism with "Freud's Wizard," it is important to realize how her work has re-centered the enterprise of biography, broadening and deepening its reach into the panoply of personalities that surround and sustain the Freuds and Joyces who once seemed a force unto themselves.
At first Carl Jung seemed to be the gentile vehicle for Freudian ideas, but he became a rival. Ernest Jones, a Celtic Welshman turned Anglophile, proved an antidote to renegades such as Jung who broke out of Freud's tight circle and sought to establish their own therapeutic regimes.
Jones was a kind of wizard (his mother had wanted to name him Merlin). He was a good mobilizer with a knack for establishing organizations that furthered Freudian ideas. He wrote in an accessible style that enticed influential readers — his book on Hamlet and Oedipus impressed both James Joyce and Laurence Olivier.
But Jones was not merely a popularizer. He had a magnetic personality that attracted women. He courted Freud's daughter, Anna, and though his suit was not successful, it demonstrated how powerfully he wished to impose his personality on Freud's movement as well as his intimates. Jones's erotic adventures often got him into trouble, but Freud understood that Jones was the indispensable disciple, worth any amount of trouble.
Jones repaid his mentor's trust during Freud's moment of peril in Vienna. Ms. Maddox begins her biography by tersely evoking Jones's mission in March 1938 to save the founder of psychoanalysis. Hitler had entered Vienna the day before. His views of psychoanalysis as a Jewish virus were well known. Jones understood that if Freud did not leave Vienna he might well be murdered. Commercial flights to Vienna from London had been canceled. The enterprising Jones hired a private plane and managed to enter the city, only to be arrested. Fluent in German, he talked his way out of incarceration. It took him nearly a week to convince Freud to abandon the city that meant everything to him.
Freud did not relent until Jones promised to spirit his master's immediate family and associates out of Nazi-occupied Vienna. Not only did Jones succeed in this daunting task, he got the British government to approve work permits for these refugees at a time when public opinion in Britain was opposed to exiles whose arrival increased competition for precious jobs.
Where did Jones get his chutzpah? He liked to joke that he was a "Shabbes-Goy" who does the work Jews are not allowed to perform on the Sabbath." Jones had grown up in Wales at a time when a bright boy yearned to assimilate into British culture. Yet he never lost his Welsh character, a feistiness he shared with his hard-working father.
Jones rejected a place at Oxford for medical studies in London and Cardiff, Wales. Interested in brain neurology, Jones found Freud's ideas captivating and adapted them to his own purposes. That Jones became Freud's biographer, writing an elegant three-volume biography, seems inevitable in retrospect. The Freud biography perfectly expressed Jones's desire to honor his master even as Jones advanced his own life's work.
Jones's story, Ms. Maddox notes, has been told before by Jones's friend Vincent Brome, and she might have added another word or two about her predecessor, an author of several biographies to whom many of us are deeply indebted. But Ms. Maddox is right that much new material has appeared since Brome published his biography in 1982, and she pays handsome tribute to the scholars who have enriched her work.
Ms. Maddox herself has a special place among current biographers. She has a knack for picking figures like Nora Joyce, for example, who are slightly off-center, but without whose presence the story of a James Joyce or a Sigmund Freud would be immeasurably diminished. Her approach to biography did not seem essential when she first began work on Nora Joyce. Richard Ellmann, the distinguished Joyce biographer, doubted Ms. Maddox would have enough material for a full-scale biography. But Ellmann acknowledged that Ms. Maddox had proved him wrong.
While Ms. Maddox does not face the same skepticism with "Freud's Wizard," it is important to realize how her work has re-centered the enterprise of biography, broadening and deepening its reach into the panoply of personalities that surround and sustain the Freuds and Joyces who once seemed a force unto themselves.
July 24, 2017
Unexpectedly fascinating insights into not just the first generation around Freud, but also Welsh and Canadian medical history.
April 4, 2008
Brenda Maddox is the highly renowned biographer of such figures as Nora Joyce, Rosalind Franklin, and D.H. Lawrence, which is perhaps one reason why she was drawn to Dr. Ernest Jones, who is himself justly remembered as the author of a three-volume, standard-setting biography of Sigmund Freud in the 1950s. Maddox's strength lies in her vigorous, accessible narrative style. Also, she steers clear of facile judgments, whether laudatory or critical, trusting to Jones' life story itself to create an effect. The result is strangely moving. Jones could be an impulsive, self-destructive, reckless, ruthless, autocratic person, yet I found myself emotionally rooting for him, especially in his earnest efforts to gain the trust and respect of Sigmund Freud. Having ruined his chances for a stellar medical career through his impetuous behavior, he turns to psychoanalysis. For Jones, Freud becomes at once both an all-important intellectual idea and his personal superego. Their relationship is tumultuous yet permanent--a rarity when one considers how many of Freud's disciples went their separate ways. It is Jones who dramatically saves Freud from the Nazis in 1938, just as he saves many dozens of other Jewish psychoanalysts. While Maddox's refusal to pass judgment is refreshing, one does long for more analysis at times. Jones' behavior is so bizarre, contradictory, and complex that a more scholarly treatment would have been welcome. His identity as a Welshman, his attitudes toward women and sexuality...all call for more than just a breezy narrative. Also, Maddox's comprehension of psychoanalytic theory often seems very shaky, thus spoiling some of her rare efforts to provide a more in-depth appraisal of her man. Still, her biography was a fascinating read.
February 10, 2017
One of the best biographies of a psychoanalyst I've ever read, and I read a lot of them.
Also, despite his many flaws, Jones turns out not to be quite the putz I thought.
Also, despite his many flaws, Jones turns out not to be quite the putz I thought.
August 24, 2007
I must preface this review by saying that I don't, and never have, held Freud in especially high regard. This book changed that to a large extent. I mean, I still think a lot of his work was, at best, painfully misogynistic. But reading this gave me a new perspective on how revolutionary his ideas on the unconscious mind were. Sure, a lot of it doesn't hold up very well over time, but he was still a pioneer in psychology and psychiatry. I think I have even more respect for Ernest Jones, who was largely responsible for the spread of Freud's ideas into the none German-speaking world. Excellent bio with an obviously very subjective, but fascinating view of Freud and the early years of psychoanalysis.
January 3, 2013
“Freud’s Wizard” by Brenda Maddox is a biography tracing the life of one Ernest Jones, a Welsh doctor and psychologist who almost single-handedly promoting Sigmund Freud’s ideas of psychoanalysis to Britain and the world.
He also orchestrated the rescuing of Freud, his family and many other prominent Jewish Viennese psychoanalysts when Hitler invaded Austria in 1938. Jones secured the difficult-to-get visas and flew into Nazi-occupied Austria to bring Freud to London.
The full review can be read on my blog
He also orchestrated the rescuing of Freud, his family and many other prominent Jewish Viennese psychoanalysts when Hitler invaded Austria in 1938. Jones secured the difficult-to-get visas and flew into Nazi-occupied Austria to bring Freud to London.
The full review can be read on my blog
January 21, 2008
Interesting and well written. Liasons with analysands & patients as well as the hypocrisy and competitiveness within Freud's inner circle seems unethical and really makes you wonder about these revered "pioneering" intellectuals. Worth reading.
February 19, 2008
Truly fascinating.
Currently reading
April 17, 2010Nice cover!
May 24, 2014
i of 5 books for $3 -19/04/2013
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews