From the Introduction

On ReadingJung

Whenever a newcomer to Jungian psychology asks for advice on where to begin reading about this valuable and exciting field of knowledge, the most common recommendation is Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections, which is a kind of autobiography that was recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffé during 1958–61 from Jung's conversations with her and from his direct contributions to the book. It deals fundamentally with Jung's inner life, the self-realization of the unconscious, and the inward vision of his personal myth; it also presents a number of events of his outward life.

Many people report being attracted first by the colorful book entitled Man and His Symbols (published in an oversize format with nearly 500 illustrations), which contains chapters written by Jung and four of his followers. The chapter by Jung himself ("Approaching the Unconscious") is a model of clarity. It was his last composition, completed just before his death in 1961.

Other works by Jung written for the general reader include The Undiscovered Self (1958) and a collection of essays entitled Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933). It generally is not recommended to start reading at random in the Collected Works (nineteen volumes of text) because many of the topics are very specialized and probably not of interest to the beginning reader. A plan for reading the Collected Works has been recently provided by Robert I-I. Hopcke in his Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung (1989).

In addition, there are significant collections of Jung's writings in the anthologies prepared by Joseph Campbell (The Portable Jung: fifteen essays) and Anthony Storr (The Essential Jung: fifty-three excerpts). C. G. Jung: Psychological Reflections, A New Anthology has nearly thirteen hundred quotations selected by Jolande Jacobi (with R. F. C. Hull) from more than one hundred works.

The unique flavor of Jung's personality and writings can be sampled in C. G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, edited by William McGuire and R. F. C. Hull, and C. G. Jung: Letters, selected and edited by Gerhard Adler in collaboration with Aniela Jaffé.

For the person who would prefer a short, systematic approach to Jung's psychology, concise introductions are presented in these two small paperbacks: An Introduction to Jung's Psychology, by Frieda Fordham, and A Primer of Jungian Psychology, by Calvin Hall and Vernon Nordby, both of which contain biographical sketches. Other, more extensive treatments of Jung's psychology are listed and annotated in chapter 3, "Jung's Psychology".

Impressions of Jung's work and particularly of his life may be gained from among nearly a dozen biographies, the most attractively presented being C. G. Jung: Word and Image (oversize format with 205 illustrations), edited by Aniela Jaffe, and An Illustrated Biography of C. G. Jung (oversize format with 231 illustrations), by Gerhard Wehr. The most extensive are written by Gerhard Wehr (Jung: A Biography), Barbara Hannah (Jung: His Life and Work), Marie-Louise von Franz (C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time), and Vincent Brome (Jung: Man and Myth).

The extent of Jung's own writings is strikingly demonstrated by the fact that they occupy eighteen original volumes of text in the Collected Works, with two additional volumes needed to contain a general bibliography (263 pp.) and a general index (735 pp.); a supplementary volume of lectures was added in 1983. Additional volumes have been published for his letters, seminar notes, and interviews. This comes to more than eight thousand pages of text and nearly three hundred fifty pages of bibliography. His published writings have appeared in eighteen languages.

Framework of This Bibliography

This book is divided into three main parts, in which the works cited are arranged by subject, author, and title, respectively. Part One contains the bulk of this work, the annotated bibliography, in which books are arranged in twelve subject categories that have been selected in part from the categories used in Jung's Collected Works with some modifications and additions. Each reference includes complete bibliographic information on title, author, date and place of publication, publisher, editions (including paperbacks), as well as number of pages (distinguished by number of pages of text, pre-pages, index, bibliography, reference notes, and illustrations). These data, while providing information on the length and nature of the work by indicating the presence or absence of such "extras" as index and references, will not in themselves be a conclusive guide to the quality or seriousness of the writing.

The brief commentary on each book is neither promotional nor critical but rather descriptive, drawing from the author's own stated objectives in writing the book as gleaned from preface, introduction, or text, along with the table of contents. For readers who want critical assessments, I list the book review sources for each book. This listing also helps the researcher to assess the extent of the book's outreach by the numbers and kinds of periodicals in which it has been reviewed. (Identification of the abbreviations for periodicals appears in Appendix B.)

Part Two, which consists of books arranged alphabetically by author (except that the works of Jung appear first), may be consulted directly, if the author's name is known. The grouping together of works by author will be helpful to those who want to consult other writings by the author of a given book. Also, a brief identification is included for each author plus the page number to which the researcher may turn for complete bibliographic and annotated information in Part One.

Part Three, which consists of books arranged alphabetically by title, may be consulted if only the title (or a key word) is known. It serves, then, as an index because it lists not only titles and subtitles but also key words which form the basis for a subject index. As in Part Two, the page number to which the researcher may turn in Part One for complete information is listed. The author's name appears only with the complete title of the book in Part Three.

Finally, appendixes are included in order to provide useful information about (A) general abbreviations used in this book, (B) titles of periodicals given as sources of book reviews in Part One, (C) publishers of Jungian-oriented books, and (D) Jungian organizations, such as foundations, institutes, centers, associations, societies, and clubs.