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15 September 1921
125B
Dear Professor Freud,
I have not yet thanked you for your kind acceptance of my dedication because I wanted to be able to let you know what was finally happening to my book at the same time. That I can now do, since Springer in Berlin have had a look at the manuscript and have at once declared themselves willing to publish it.1 They estimate it will run to 500 pages and have offered what for a ‘beginner’ are most advantageous terms. I don't think, however, that the book can be printed this year, but hope it will come out during the first few months of next year.
May I take this opportunity of commending to you my colleague, Prinzhorn,2 who will be calling on you very soon? He has a fresh mind, unburdened by prejudice, is very receptive if not very deep, has an artist's love of independence and strong dislike of all authority, is, as far as I can tell, trustworthy, and has a difficult marriage. I treated his wife some years ago for a grave psychosis. He did a good job of setting up the Heidelberg museum for the artistic works of mental patients.3
I am not sure if you are back in Vienna but hope in any case that you have had a good holiday. Your latest book4 has been on my desk for several days and I am very much looking forward to reading it.
With kind regards, ever yours, [L. Binswanger]
Diary II, p. 115: ‘Manuscript sent to Springer on the 10th [August], after [I had] asked him on 26 July and he at once agreed.’ And p. 118: ‘19 September agreement with Springer about my book.’
Hans Prinzhorn (1886-1933), psychiatrist who became widely known for his work on the ‘paintings of the mentally ill’. Cf. Jarchov (1980) and Geinitz (1986/87).
Binswanger had seen the ‘Exhibition of paintings and sculpture by mental patients' in the Heidelberg Psychiatric Clinic on 13 September 1920 on his way back from the congress in Leiden and wrote of an ‘overpowering impression’, see diary II, p. 91. Prinzhorn then visited the Bellevue in October and De