Missing the Mark: Errors and Problems in the <i>Revised Standard Edition</i>

This article points out 3 errors in the Revised Standard Edition (RSE), two of which Mark Solms failed to correct from the Standard Edition (SE) and one of which he introduced. It argues that the first 2 errors are symptomatic of Solms’s neglect of the work of scholars who are considered by “true believers” to cast Freud in an unduly negative light. Solms’s refusal to comment on the significance of the fault lines in Freud’s writing is contrasted with Strachey’s editorial practice. Solms’s decision not to include the names of Freud’s patients that are already in the public domain is criticized, as is his reliance on the censored edition of Freud’s letters to Fliess. The RSE is viewed as an ideological production that reflects Solms’s “anointment” as the descendant of Anna Freud. The article concludes that the RSE has not superseded the SE, which remains the only canonical version of Freud in English.