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BBC Radio 4 LW

Book of the Week

Audiobooks

Factual

Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

BBC Radio 4 FM

Book of the Week: Labyrinths

Deborah Findlay

Henry Goodman

Catrine Clay

Elizabeth Burke

Book of the Week: Labyrinths: Episode 4

Labyrinths

Episode 4

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Labyrinths, Episode 4

Emma gives Carl an ultimatum - and threatens a scandalous divorce.

The story of Emma Jung, her marriage to Carl and the early years of psychoanalysis.

Emma Jung was clever, ambitious and immensely wealthy, one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland, when she met and fell in love with Carl Jung, a handsome but penniless medical student. She was only 17, too young to understand Carl's complex personality or conceive of the dramas that lay ahead. 

It was a highly unconventional marriage, with many labyrinthine twists and turns. Emma was forced to fight with everything she had to come to terms with Carl's brilliant but complicated character and to keep her husband close to her. His belief in polygamy led to many extra-marital involvements, with women he met when they became his patients. A ménage a trois with a former patient Toni Wolff lasted some thirty years. But the marriage endured and Emma realised her ambition to become a noted analyst in her own right.

In this fourth episode, Emma considers delivering Carl an ultimatum. They rescue their marriage by moving out of the asylum into a house of their own - complete with a tower designed by Jung. But Carl's former patient, Sabina Spielrein, has not gone away, and decides she wants a child with him. 

Readers: Deborah Findlay and Henry Goodman

Written by Catrine Clay
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

The story of Emma Jung, her marriage to Carl and the early years of psychoanalysis.

By Catrine Clay. The story of Emma Jung, her marriage to Carl and the early years of psychoanalysis. Read by Deborah Findlay and Henry Goodman.

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