CRITICISM

Brock, Michael. “Forbidden Fruits.” History Today 37 (January 1987): 55–56.

Brock argues that Gay's ambitious project tends to meander and lacks a clearly structured, overarching argument in this review of The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, Volume II: The Tender Passion.

Collins, Anne. “The Sex Lives of Proper Victorians.” Macleans 97, no. 10 (5 March 1984): 54–55.

Collins offers a positive assessment of The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, Volume I: Education of the Senses.

Heinegg, Peter. “Downhill since Victoria.” America 186, no. 15 (6 May 2002): 27.

Heinegg offers a positive assessment of Schnitzler's Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture, 1815–1914, noting that Gay's choice of physician and writer Arthur Schnitzler as the focus of his work is “more than a little quixotic.”

Howard, Helen. Review of Freud: A Life for Our Time, by Peter Gay. Clinical Social Work Journal 18, no. 1 (spring 1990): 105–06.

Howard praises Freud: A Life for Our Time for its “rich” array of details about Freud's life, extensive use of archival sources, and clear explanations of Freudian theory.

Ingleby, David. “Analysing the Master.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4442 (20 May 1988): 547–48.

Ingleby offers a generally positive assessment of Freud: A Life for Our Time, but notes that the work has several major weaknesses.

Jenkyns, Richard. “The Elusiveness of the Bourgeoisie.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4978 (28 August 1998): 9–10.

In this review of The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, Volume V: Pleasure Wars, Jenkyns argues that Gay is at his best in describing little-known historical details based on primary sources, but adds that Gay has difficulty bringing these details together into a cohesive historical argument.

Perkin, Harold. “Infants in Barbarism.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4755 (20 May 1994): 21.

Perkin describes The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, Volume III: The Cultivation of Hatred as a “brilliant” volume, praising Gay's broad scope and extensive use of disparate sources.

Reitter, Paul. “Vienna: Waltz or Go-Go?” Nation 274, no. 4 (4 February 2002): 30.

Reitter offers a generally positive assessment of Schnitzler's Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture, 1815–1914, but argues that the volume would have been “stronger if Gay had taken on more formidable opponents.”

Robb, Graham. “The Shock of the Old.” New York Review of Books 49, no. 8 (9 May 2002): 17–20.

Robb offers a positive assessment of Schnitzler's Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture, 1815–1914.

Seigel, Jerrold. Review of The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, Volume V: Pleasure Wars, by Peter Gay. American Historical Review 104, no. 2 (April 1999): 627–29.

Seigel praises The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, Volume V: Pleasure Wars for Gay's rich use of detail drawn from little-known primary sources, but argues that Pleasure Wars is ultimately unsatisfying and fails to offer a cohesive argument about the nature of bourgeois culture.

Weeks, Jeffrey. “An Anxious Sensibility.” History Today 34 (August 1984): 54.

Weeks criticizes The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, Volume I: Education of the Senses for failing to provide new historical insight and for neglecting important issues of class conflict.

Additional coverage of Gay's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: Contemporary Authors, Vols. 13–16R; Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vols. 18, 41, 77; and Literature Resource Center.