The most trivial slips of the tongue or pen, Freud believed, can reveal our secret ambitions, money worries and sexual fantasies.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life ranks among his most entertaining and accessible works. Starting with the story of how he once forgot the name of an Italian painter - and how a young acquaintance mangled a quotation from Virgil through fears that his girlfriend might be pregnant - it brings together a treasure trove of muddled memories, inadvertent actions and verbal tangles. Amusing, moving and deeply revealing of the repressed, hypocritical Viennese society of his day, Freud's dazzling interpretations provide the perfect introduction to psychoanalytic thinking in action.