Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex

Published in 1905, these three essays set out Freud's theory of human development: that sexual drives are present from early childhood, that they pass through stages, and that adult character and neurosis are shaped by how those stages are lived. Freud discusses what was then called deviation calmly and clinically, and the book caused a scandal in the Vienna of its day.

This is the English translation by A. A. Brill, published under this title. Together with The Interpretation of Dreams, it is one of the two pillars of psychoanalytic theory, and Freud kept revising it for twenty years. It is a work of medical science written for adult readers.

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) grew up in Vienna in a Jewish family and trained as a neurologist. After studying hypnosis with the famous Charcot in Paris, he began listening to his patients talk freely about their dreams and memories, and developed from this practice a new theory of the mind and a new kind of treatment: psychoanalysis.

From his consulting room at Berggasse 19 he published The Interpretation of Dreams and a stream of books that changed psychology, literature and everyday language. In 1938, after the Nazis took over Austria, he fled to London, where he died the following year. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis is the best place to begin.