Otto Rank

Otto Rank died in New York in September 1939 at the early age of fifty-five. With him passes one of the most brilliant figures in the history of Psycho-Analysis, but also one of the tragic ones. From 1909 to 1924 he was, deservedly so, one of the most prominent figures in psycho-analytical circles. He presented himself one day to Professor Freud, bringing with him his first book Der Künstler, and at once made an impression of a keen and promising mind. Work of a secretarial kind was found for him, in Freud's private library, in the Vienna Society and, later, in the Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag; in all these capacities he displayed the utmost zeal and devotion. The Verlag was founded by a sum of money left by Dr. Anton von Freund, which Rank and I managed to smuggle into security during the chaos of 1919. For a few years Rank was the Verlag; without any assistance he saw personally to the printing (buying type, paper, etc.), publishing, editing and even the despatch of the parcels. What he achieved in this connection remains as a permanent possession of our libraries; his work there culminated in the publication of Freud's Gesammelte Schriften.

During these years Rank found time to publish himself an immense quantity of most valuable contributions to Psycho-Analysis, many of which are among the best known of our literature. I refer here to his writings on the 'family romance', the saving phantasy, the Doppelgänger, narcissism, symbolism, nudity, the folkloristic parallels to infantile sexual theories, and his many contributions to dream analysis. Then there was his fascinating Die Bedeutung der Psychoanalyse für die Geisteswissenschaften, written together with Hanns Sachs, all his Psychoanalytische Beiträge zur Mythenforschung and above all his masterpiece Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage, which appeared as early as 1912—an astonishing scholarly achievement for a young man of twenty-eight. It may truly be said that many of these contribution