The Red Book

This Caldecott Honor-winning book about a book is a delightful, wordless tale about the power of stories, perfect for fans of Brendan Wenzel and David Weisner. A red book is lying in the snow in the city. When you open it, you find a new kind of adventure. You will be taken across oceans and continents when you just flip the page. But this book-in-a-book holds even more secrets to discover. Lehman's simple story line and surprising illustrations create an unexpectedly enchanting story about friendship, connectedness, and how stories can bring us together . . . and even bring us inside their pages.

The Red Book, published to wide acclaim in 2009, contains the nucleus of C. G. Jung's later works. It was here that he developed his principal theories of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the process of individuation that would transform psychotherapy from treatment of the sick into a means for the higher development of the personality. As Sara Corbett wrote in the New York Times, "The creation of one of modern history's true visionaries, The Red Book is a singular work, outside of categorization. As an inquiry into what it means to be human, it transcends the history of psychoanalysis and underscores Jung's place among revolutionary thinkers like Marx, Orwell and, of course, Freud." The Red Book: A Reader's Edition features Sonu Shamdasani's introductory essay and the full translation of Jung's vital work in one volume.

The Red Book, published to wide acclaim in 2009, contains the nucleus of C. G. Jung's later works. It was here that he developed his principal theories of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the process of individuation that would transform psychotherapy from treatment of the sick into a means for the higher development of the personality. As Sara Corbett wrote in the New York Times, "The creation of one of modern history's true visionaries, The Red Book is a singular work, outside of categorization. As an inquiry into what it means to be human, it transcends the history of psychoanalysis and underscores Jung's place among revolutionary thinkers like Marx, Orwell and, of course, Freud." The Red Book: A Reader's Edition features Sonu Shamdasani's introductory essay and the full translation of Jung's vital work in one volume.

"The years, of which I have spoken to you, when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then." These are the words of the psychologist C. G. Jung in 1957, referring to the decades he worked on The Red Book from 1914 to 1930. Although its existence has been known for more than eighty years, The Red Book was never published or made available to the wide audience of Jung's students and followers. Nothing less than the central book of Jung's oeuvre, it is being published now in a full facsimile edition with a contextual essay and notes by the noted Jung scholar Sonu Shamdasani and translated by Mark Kyburz, John Peck and Sonu Shamdasani. It will now be possible to study Jung's self-experimentation through primary documentation rather than fantasy, gossip and speculation, and to grasp the genesis of his later work. For nearly a century, such a reading has simply not been possible, and the vast literature on his life and work has lacked access to the single most important document. This publication opens the possibility of a new era in understanding Jung's work. It provides a unique window into how he recovered his soul and constituted a psychology. It is possibly the most influential hitherto unpublished work in the history of psychology. This exact facsimile of The Red Book reveals not only an extraordinary mind at work but also the hand of a gifted artist and calligrapher. Interspersed among more than two hundred lovely illuminated pages are paintings whose influences range from Europe, the Middle East and the Far East to the native art of the new world. The Red Book, much like the handcrafted "Books of Hours" from the Middle Ages, is unique. Both in terms of its place in Jung's development and as a work of art, its publication is a landmark.

"The years, of which I have spoken to you, when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then." These are the words of the psychologist C. G. Jung in 1957, referring to the decades he worked on The Red Book from 1914 to 1930. Although its existence has been known for more than eighty years, The Red Book was never published or made available to the wide audience of Jung's students and followers. Nothing less than the central book of Jung's oeuvre, it is being published now in a full facsimile edition with a contextual essay and notes by the noted Jung scholar Sonu Shamdasani and translated by Mark Kyburz, John Peck and Sonu Shamdasani. It will now be possible to study Jung's self-experimentation through primary documentation rather than fantasy, gossip and speculation, and to grasp the genesis of his later work. For nearly a century, such a reading has simply not been possible, and the vast literature on his life and work has lacked access to the single most important document. This publication opens the possibility of a new era in understanding Jung's work. It provides a unique window into how he recovered his soul and constituted a psychology. It is possibly the most influential hitherto unpublished work in the history of psychology. This exact facsimile of The Red Book reveals not only an extraordinary mind at work but also the hand of a gifted artist and calligrapher. Interspersed among more than two hundred lovely illuminated pages are paintings whose influences range from Europe, the Middle East and the Far East to the native art of the new world. The Red Book, much like the handcrafted "Books of Hours" from the Middle Ages, is unique. Both in terms of its place in Jung's development and as a work of art, its publication is a landmark.