Note on the History of Freud's Library
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The largest remaining part of Freud's personal library is now on display at 20 Maresfield Gardens, London In 1938 during the last weeks in Vienna before emigrating, Freud spent some of his time selecting those volumes he wished to bring with him to London. A selection of his library (over 800 titles) he disposed of through book dealers. It is still not clear upon what basis this selection was made. Most of this.part of the library was bought by the New York State Psychiatric Institute and taken to America, and is now housed in a special collection in the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University, New York. A smaller number was eventually donated to the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. The remainder, over 1600 titles plus various offprints and journals, he was able to bring to London and they surrounded him in his study as they had done in Vienna. There are some smaller collections of volumes from Freud's library, elsewhere. Some were found on the second-hand market in Austria and are now in the Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna. A number remain in private hands. |
| Freud lent, gave and exchanged
books throughout
his life and few of the volumes he is known to have owned early in life
have survived. Those surviving represent mainly, but not exclusively,
the
interests of his mature years. However, he still retained medical and
scientific
texts, editions of Darwin, Charcot, Krafft-Ebing, etc. from his early
years.
There is an extensive collection of volumes on archaeology, and all aspects of the world of antiquity. Freud's interest in religion and particulaly the history of Moses and the Jews is well represented, as are figures in the history of art, e.g. Leonardo da Vinci. Literature figured largely in Freud's interests, and a complete edition of the works of Goethe has pride of place. There are also, amonst others, editions of Shakespeare, Gogol, Balzac and Anatole France. Once psychoanalysis became established and attracted
supporters and
practitioners Freud received a flow of works, often with dedications,
from the
followers and admirers.
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 Freud's bookplate |
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Ever since the Museum opened it planned to
publish a catalogue
of the personal library of Sigmund Freud, which is of great interest to
academic researchers in many fields of study.
The Museum has now published the catalogue in collaboration with the German publisher edition diskord. It brings together information on all known holdings, including those held in the USA and Vienna as well as those in private hands. This has been made possible by the collaboration of J. Keith Davies, Librarian of the Freud Museum and Professor Dr Gerhard Fichtner, Director Emeritus of the Institute for the History of Medicine, University of Tübingen. The catalogue is in the form of a book with an introductory text in both German and English and a heavily illustrated CD (in English) with the full catalogue listing. It is available now from the Freud Museum shop. Massenpsychologie des Faschismus
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Appeal for information: It is clear from Freud's writings and correspondence that there are many volumes he once possessed or had access to which are now "lost", that is not present in any of the known remaining collections. Some are possibly in unknown private or institutional collections. We would like to trace as many of these as possible, in order to publish the bibliographical data, ownership signature, dedications and any marginalia. If you know of any such volumes, please contact the
Librarian, Keith
Davies.
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That part of Freud's Library housed in Maresfield Gardens is open to serious researchers, (usually at post-graduate level and above).
Access to volumes is restricted only by considerations of conservation of the volumes themselves. (Many volumes are very fragile and in general researchers are encouraged to seek out volumes elsewhere for general consultation).
To arrange an appointment, please apply in writing or by e-mail to the Librarian.
Times: Monday to Friday 10.30 am to 4.30pm
Reference Library:
The Museum maintains a research reference library on Freud and the
history of psychoanalysis.
[Click for Research
Library and
Catalogue.]
We welcome donations of relevant volumes by authors and publishers
so that the library may be as comprehensive as possible. All donated
books
are acknowledged on our listing of New Books.
Use of the reference library is free, but it is not a lending library:
books may only be consulted on-site and by prior appointment.
[Click for more
information on
the Research Centre. ]
References to the Library of Sigmund Freud
20 Maresfield Gardens: A guide to the Freud Museum London. (Section on "The Library"). London: Serpent's Tail, 1998.
Bakan, David. (1975) The authenticity of the Freud Memorial Collection. Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences, Oct. 1975, 11(4): 365-7.
Brückner, Peter. (1975) Sigmund Freuds Privatlektüre. Köln: Verlag Neue Kritik.
Davies, J. K.& Fichtner, G., eds. (2006) Freud’s Library. A Comprehensive Catalogue / Freud’s Bibliothek. Vollständiger Katalog. London/Tübingen: Freud Museum London/edition diskord.
Davies, Keith. (1998) Die archäologische Bibliothek Freuds. In: "Meine alten und dreckigen Götter", Hrsg. Lydia Marinelli. Frankfurt am Main: Stroemfeld.
Eissler, Kurt R. (1979) Bericht über die sich in den Vereinigten Staaten befindenden Bücher aus S. Freuds Bibliothek. Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse, Bd. XI, pp. 10-50.
Gay, Peter. (1990) Reading Freud: Explorations and entertainments. New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Press.
Gilman, S. et al., eds. (1994) Reading Freud's reading. New York: New York Univ. Press.
Ginsburg, Lawrence. (1997) An "unremembered" book from Freud's juvenile era. The Annual of Psychoanalysis, vol. 25, pp. 249-260.
Harms, Ernest. (1971) A fragment of Freud's library. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, vol. XL, no. 3, pp. 491-495.
Holt, Robert. (1988) Freud's adolescent reading. Some possible effects on his work. In, Paul Stepansky (ed.) Freud: Appraisals and reappraisals, Hillside, NJ: The Analytic Press.
Lewis, Nolan D. C.; Landis, Carney (1957) Freud's library. Psychoanalytic review, vol. 44, pp. 327ff.
Lobner, Hans. (1975) Some additional remarks on Freud's library. Sigmund Freud House Bulletin, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 18-29.
Sulloway, Frank J. (1979) The dating of Freud's reading of Albert Moll's Untersuchungen über die Libido sexualis. Appendix D in, Freud, Biologist of the mind. New York: Basic Books.
Timms, Edward. (1988) Freud's library and his private reading. In, Freud in exile: Psychoanalysis and its vicissitudes, E. Timms and N. Segal (eds.). New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Press, pp. 65-79.
Trosman, Harry; Simmons, Roger Dennis. (1973) The Freud library. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 646-687.
Weiss, Robert J. (1978) Dr Anna Freud, on a visit to P & S, recalls past of her father's books. Physicians and Surgeons Journal, vol. 23(3).