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THE MAIN PART of Sigmund Freud's library is preserved at the home of his daughter, Anna Freud, in London. When Freud left Vienna in June, 1938 in the face of the German occupation, he was permitted to take his personal effects, including his collection of antiquities and books. The Nazis initially threatened to confiscate the library, relenting only upon being paid over $800 in ransom money (Jones, 1957). During the last few weeks in Vienna, while awaiting permission to leave, Freud went through his library, selected those books he wished to take to London, and disposed of the others. This last group—described below—was eventually acquired by the New York State Psychiatric Institute.
The library in London provides a valuable key to the range of Freud's reading. It includes source material not available in present bibliographies of Freud's published writings, and thus it provides evidence for Freud's familiarity with heretofore presumptive or unsuspected antecedents. In addition, the present composition of the library is a product of Freud's judgment in his later years of books he thought useful or worthy of preservation.
From the time Freud became a student he had a passion for collecting and owning books. He alludes to the sources of this passion in his analysis of the dream of the botanical monograph