Aniela Jaffé - Letters of C. G. Jung

In May 1956, in his eighty-second year, Jung first discussed with Gerhard Adler the question of the publication of his letters. Over many years, Jung had often used the medium of letters to communicate his ideas to others and to clarify the interpretation of his work, quite apart from answering people who approached him with genuine problems of their own and simply corresponding with friends and colleagues. Many of his letters thus contain new creative ideas and provide a running commentary on his work.

From some 1,600 letters written by Jung between the years 1906-1961, the editors have selected over 1,000. Volume 1, first published in 1973, contains those letters written between 1906 and 1950. Volume 2 contains 460 letters written between 1951 and 1961, during the last years of Jung's life, when he was in contact with many people whose names are familiar to the English reader. These indude Mircea Eliade, R.F.C. Hull, Ernest Jones, Herbert Read, J.B. Rhine, Upton Sinclair and Fr. Victor White.

Volume 2 also contains an addendum with sixteen letters from the period 1915-1946 and a subject index to both volumes. The annotation throughout is detailed and authoritative.

The Editors

Gerhard Adler underwent a training analysis with C.G. Jung in the 1930s and is now President of the International Association for Analytical Psychology. He is one of the editors of 'The Collected Works of C.G. Jung' and his published works include Studies in Analytical Psychology (Hodder, 1966) and The Living Symbol (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961).

Aniela Jaff collaborated with Jung in his Memories, Dreams and Reflections (Routledge, 1962).

selected and edited by Gerhard Adler
in collaboration with Aniela Jaff
translations from the German by R. F. C. Hull

in two volumes 1: 1906-1950

FIRST PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN IN 1973
BY ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL, LTD
REPRINTED IN 1992 BY ROUTLEDGE

Published 2015 by Routledge
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ISBN: 978-0-415-09435-1

1973 BY TAYLOR&FRANCIS

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In May 1956Jung was then nearly 82I broached to him the question of the publication of his letters. Jung's ready response made it clear that this project had been on his mind for some time. Thus my inquiry came at a favourable moment, and Jung asked his secretary, Mrs. Aniela Jaff, to select two file folders of letters, all of them to clergymen, labelled "Pfarrerbriefe" in Jung's own handwriting, for my opinion concerning the advisability of their publication.

Over many years Jung had frequently used the medium of letters to communicate his ideas to the outside world and to rectify misinterpretations about which he felt sufficiently strongly, quite apart from answering people who approached him with genuine problems of their own and corresponding with friends and professional colleagues. In this way many of his letters contained new creative ideas and a running commentary on his work.

In his later years it became his practice to send copies of letters which he regarded as important to people whose judgment he trusted. This he did partly to communicate ideas to them which, on account of his age, he no longer felt willing or able to put into book form, and partly because the question of the publication of his letters had been on his mind for some time.

Originally the idea of such publication had come not from himself but from friends who were aware of the unique literary and psychological value of Jung's correspondence. At first Jung had reacted against the whole notion, since he felt that the spontaneity and immediacy of his letters were not for the general public; but in his later years he changed his attitude, and he even mentioned occasionally in a particular letter that it was not only directed to the addressee but was also meant for later publication.

Thus it was just the right moment when I put my own thoughts to Jung, and he responded by asking me if I were willing to undertake the editorial task. The final result of my talk and of the ensuing correspondence with him was formulated in Jung's decision, stated in a letter to me of 15 November 1957, to appoint an Editorial Committee consisting of his daughter Mrs. Marianne Niehus-Jung as representative of the family, Mrs. Aniela Jaff, who had been Jung's secretary since the autumn of 1955 and was familiar with the archives kept at his house in Ksnacht, and finally myself as chairman of the Committee and chief editor who was to direct the whole project. The matter was formalized in a letter of 29 January 1959 from Jung to Mr. John D. Barrett, president of the Bollingen Foundation, which sponsored the publication of Jung's Collected Works. The original plan had been to bring out the letters as part of the Collected Works, a plan which was later modified so as to publish the letters independently.

There the matter rested until after Jung's death in 1961. Active work on the project started in January 1962, and early in 1963 appeals for Jung's letters were published in various newspapers and journals in the United States, Great Britain and Switzerland. This appeal was all the more important since the archives in Ksnacht were, to put it conservatively, incomplete. For years, Jung had no regular secretary, except for occasional help from his unmarried sister Gertrud. He wrote most letters in longhand and apparently kept no file copies. It was not until April 1931, when his daughter Marianne (later Mrs. Walther Niehus-Jung) began helping her father with secretarial work, that carbon copies of typewritten letters sent out were kept and filed together with letters received. But it was only in 1932, with the advent of Marie-Jeanne Schmid (later Mrs. Marie-Jeanne Boller-Schmid, daughter of Jung's friend Dr. Hans Schmid-Guisan), that files were established in a systematic way. Marie-Jeanne Schmid remained Jung's secretary until her marriage in 1952. Without her accuracy and devoted care, the publication of these letters would have been virtually impossible, and to her is due the gratitude of all interested in Jung's work.