Presents an English translation of Jacques Lacan's most famous work, with translations of all the papers featured in the original French edition.

Overture to this collection -- Seminar on "The purloined letter" -- On my antecedents -- Beyond the "reality principle" -- The mirror stage as formative of the I function as revealed in psychoanalytic experience -- Aggressiveness in psychoanalysis -- A theoretical introduction to the functions of psychoanalysis in criminology -- Presentation on psychical causality -- Logical time and the assertion of anticipated certainty -- Presentation on transference -- On the subject who is finally in question -- The function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis -- Variations on the standard treatment -- On a purpose -- Introduction to Jean Hyppolite's commentary on Freud's "Verneinung" -- Response to Jean Hyppolite's commentary on Freud's "Verneinung" -- The Freudian thing, or the meaning of the return to Freud in psychoanalysis -- Psychoanalysis and its teaching -- The situation of psychoanalysis and the training of psychoanalysts in 1956 -- The instance of the letter in the unconscious, or reason since Freud -- On a question prior to any possible treatment of psychosis -- The direction of the treatment and the principles of its power -- Remarks on Daniel Lagache's presentation : "Psychoanalysis and personality structure" -- The signification of the phallus -- In memory of Ernest Jones : on his theory of symbolism -- On an ex post facto syllabary -- Guiding remarks for a convention on female sexuality -- The youth of Gide, or the letter and desire -- Kant with Sade -- The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the Freudian unconscious -- Position of the unconscious -- On Freud's "Trieb" and the psychoanalysts desire -- Science and truth -- Appendix I : A spoken commentary on Freud's "Verneinung" / Jean Hyppolite -- Appendix II : metaphor of the subject.