Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (New York Review Books Classics)

In 1884, the distinguished German jurist Daniel Paul Schreber suffered the first of a series of mental collapses that would afflict him for the rest of his life. In his madness, the world was revealed to him as an enormous architecture of nerves, dominated by a predatory God. It became clear to Schreber that his personal crisis was implicated in what he called a "crisis in God's realm," one that had transformed the rest of humanity into a race of fantasms. There was only one remedy; as his doctor noted: Schreber "considered himself chosen to redeem the world, and to restore to it the lost state of Blessedness. This, however, he could only do by first being transformed from a man into a woman...."

In 1884, the distinguished German jurist Daniel Paul Schreber suffered the first of a series of mental collapses that would afflict him for the rest of his life. In his madness, the world was revealed to him as an enormous architecture of nerves, dominated by a predatory God. But it became clear to Schreber that his personal crisis was implicated in what he called a crisis in God's realm, one that had transformed the rest of humanity into a race of phantasms. There was only one remedy. As Schreber's doctor noted: He considered himself chosen to redeem the world, and to restore to it the lost state of Blessedness. This, however, he could only do by first being transformed from a man into a woman.

Composed while Schreber was confined to a psychiatric hospital and published at the outset of the twentieth century, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness has fascinated and haunted its many readers, including Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Elias Canetti, and Gilles Deleuze, and has established itself as a key text for students of psychology and modern social and cultural history. As Rosemary Dinnage says in her introduction to this new edition, Schreber wrote an account of what it is to be forsaken by everything familiar and real, and of the delusionary world that gets invented in their place. His book is perhaps the most revealing dispatch ever received from the far side of madness.

Booknews

In 1884, distinguished German jurist Schreber (1842-1911) began a series of mental collapses that afflicted him the rest of his life. He produced this account while confined to a psychiatric hospital; it was published as DenkwÃ1⁄4rdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken in 1903. It has become one of the most read and studied works in psychiatric literature since Freud's celebrated 1911 paper about it. The translation was first published by W. Dawson, London in 1955. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Perhaps the most revealing dispatch ever received from the far side of madness. Daniel Schreber was born in 1842, and was a distinguished German judge when he suffered his first mental breakdown in 1884. He was never released from hospital. Translated by Ida McAlpine and Richard A. Hunter Introduced by Rosemary Dinnage In 1884 Daniel Paul Schreber suffered the first of a series of mental breakdowns that would lead to his permanent confinement in an insane asylum. He accused his doctors of 'soul murder' and composed this memoir to tell the public about his treatment and plea for his release. One of the most revealing dispatches ever received from the far side of madness, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness made an extraordinary impression on Jung and was the subject of a controversial case history by Freud. It has continued to be an inspiration to writers like Walter Benjamin and Elias Canetti