Freud for Beginners

The Beginner Books -- "Their cartoon format and irreverent wit make difficult ideas accessible and entertaining." -- Newsday Everything you need to know about neurosis, libido, ego, and id -- but somehow it slipped your mind. Freud for Beginners is a perfect introduction to the life and thought of the man whose discovery of psychoanalysis revolutionized our attitudes towards mental illness, religion, sex, and culture. This documentary cartoon book plunges us into the world of late-nineteenth-century Vienna in which Freud grew up. We explore his early background in science, his work as a therapist, his encounter with cocaine, and his theories on the unconscious, dreams, the Oedipus Complex, and sexuality. We meet his family, his friend and enemies, and his patients -- The Rat Man, Anna O., Little Hans -- and we get an insider's view as the psychoanalytic movement is launched. The zany art and probing text do an extraordinary job of simplifying Freud without trivializing him.

RICHARD APPIGNANESI is a novelist, poet, and art historian, born in Montreal, Canada, in 1940 and currently living in London. He received a Ph.D. in the Social History of Art from the University of Sussex and is one of the founding members and directors of the Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative.

OSCAR ZARATE is a Latin American illustrator and designer, born in 1942 and now also living in London. He has been the art director of several advertising agencies in Buenos Aires, and has also designed and illustrated three children’s books. His posters and cover designs have won numerous prizes in Europe and Argentina.