Vienna: Alfred Holder, 1897. First edition. 8vo. (vi), 327 pp. Presentation copy, inscribed by Sigmund Freud at top of front wrapper to his friend and colleague Rudolf Reitler: "Herr Dr. R. Reitler /Freundshaftlich / Verf(asser)". With three folding tables. Publisher's stiff printed yellow wrappers, chipping and creasing along extremities, repairs along spine and joints, lightly soiled; scattered creasing and short closed tears along text edges. Garrison & Morton 4708.2; Norman F32; Grinstein 10372; Ashwal, Founders in Child Neurology pp. 247-252

A rare and significant presentation copy of Sigmund Freud's last neurological treatise published before his turn to psychoanalysis. Inscribed by him to his friend and colleague, Dr. Rudolf Reitler, the first person after Freud to practice psychoanalysis.

Childhood friends, Freud and Reitler attended the University of Vienna together, and afterwards each became physicians. During the 1890s when Freud was developing psychoanalysis, Reitler had kept abreast of Freud's thinking by attending his Saturday evening lectures on psychology, which Freud had been giving since the mid 1880s. By 1902, a small group of interested physicians and students had formed around Freud, including Reitler, as well as Wilhelm Stekel, Max Kahane, and Alfred Adler. That autumn "Freud addressed a postcard to these four men...suggesting that they meet for discussion of his work at his residence. Stekel said it was he who had first made that suggestion to Freud…so Stekel may be accorded the honor, together with Freud, of having founded the first psychoanalytic society. At all events, from then on they formed the habit of meeting every Wednesday evening for discussions in Freud's waiting-room" (Jones II, p. 8). In the years that followed this weekly group would continue to grow in membership and eventually form into the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.

Freud's writing on cerebral palsy spanned ten years, beginning in 1889. This is considered "one of the most important works ever written on this subject" (Norman).

A fine association marking the beginnings of psychoanalysis.