ABSTRACT
By the time Adrian Stokes worked on writing about the Ballets Russes in his book, To-Night the Ballet, Melanie Klein had moved to a house in St John's Wood where his psychoanalytic treatment with her continued. He too had moved. His treatment by Klein had acquainted him with her theory that psychological development proceeds from experiencing others as part-objects to experiencing others, beginning with the mother, not in bits but as good, loved, hated, and whole. He praised the revival of the deftness of classical ballet in Ballets Russes productions. "Every lover of ballet should read Mr. Stokes's book, especially his convincing defence of the classical method," admired Raymond Mortimer in the New Statesman. With the publication of To-Night the Ballet, preceded by the publication of the first two volumes of his quattrocento trilogy, Stokes had consolidated his reputation as a major innovative art critic by the time the summer break in his psychoanalytic treatment began in early August 1934.
