Dreams

On the occasion of his 150th Birthday on 15 May, 2012: Arther Schnitzler’s complete dream notations from his literary estate.

When reading Arthur Schnitzler’s great personal journals, it becomes immediately evident that the poet who wrote »Fräulein Else«, »Traumnovelle« (Dream Story) and other masterpieces, in which the characters have elaborate and meaningful dreams, also led an active dream life himself: the author’s recordings of his own dreams are some of the most delightfully narrated passages in his diaries.

Between 1921 and 1931 Schnitzler extracted his dream notations, revised them stylistically and added two substantial dream texts which do not appear in the diaries. The result is a fascinating chronicle of his spiritual life, a piece of work that challenges us to a confrontation with Freud’s »Interpretation of Dreams«. Although the dream texts of course reflect Schnitzler’s most personal sufferings and passions, they also contain strange scenarios in which famous contemporary figures appear: as well as Freud there is Herzl, Klimt, Hofmannsthal, Mahler and many others. Schnitzler’s »Dreams« is the deepest »book of the night« of that epoch, not only as an »unconscious« autobiography of the author but also as a dark reflection of his times.


This typescript, from his literary estate, is now published for the first time in whole and complemented with a detailed commentary.

»If a person could decide to write down all his dreams without making distinctions, regardless.. He would be making a huge gift to mankind«. Friedrich Hebbel


Arthur Schnitzler
(1862-1931) practicing physician and freelance author in Vienna, one of the leading authors of the classical modern period.

The Editors
Peter Michael Braunwarth, born in 1952, works at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, member of the editorial team of Schnitzler’s ten-volume edition of journals (1981-2000) and of the two-volume edition of Schnizler’s letters (1981-1984), since 2010 involved in the historical-critical edition of Schnitzler’s early works.
Leo A. Lensing, born in 1948, is a Professor of German and the History of Film at the Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Publications include: Karl Kraus: »Brief über den Vater« (Letter about my father?, ed., 2007) and »Peter Altenberg: Die Selbsterfindung eines Dichters« (The Self-Fabricated Poet,? ed., 2009).

Rights sold:
Italy: Saggiatore