K. R. Eissler's book is a significant contribution to the study of the psychological process of creation and of the origin of genius, insofar as that problem can be illuminated by a psychoanalytic inquiry into one crucial period in the life of one man of genius: Goethe.
Some readers may be frightened by the size of these two volumes, totalling 1538 pages with a complex apparatus of footnotes and appendices (the many quotations from Goethe given in English translation are always substantiated with the German original text in footnotes).