This original book investigates the role played by literature in Sigmund Freud's creation and development of psychoanalysis. Graham Frankland analyzes the whole range of Freud's own texts from a literary-critical perspective, providing a comprehensive reappraisal of his life's work. His study reveals how Freud was deeply rooted in European literary tradition, examining in detail the rhetoric and imagery of his writing, the influence of literary criticism on his approach to analyzing patients and his creation of psychoanalytical "novels," quasi-literary fictions fraught with profoundly personal subtexts.