BOLDLY SIGNED BY SIGMUND FREUD: THE 1924-38 FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF HIS COMPLETE WORKS

FREUD, Sigmund. Gesammelte Schriften [Collected Writings]. Leipzig/Wien/Zurich: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, (1924, 1925, 1928, 1934). Twelve volumes. Octavo, original blue cloth. $24,000.

First collected edition of the pioneering psychoanalyst's collected works, boldly signed on the front free endpaper in Volume I: "Sigm. Freud, 1936."

"It was Freud's fate, as he observed not without pride, to 'agitate the sleep of mankind'" (Gay, Sigmund Freud: A Brief Life). "Freud was a brilliant apologist for his own ideas… At their best, his expository writings might be described as intellectual seductions… No other major modern intellectual—not Marx, not Darwin—rivals Freud as a popular advocate for his own views" (Stanford 1991, 69). "The United States has given Freud his stature in the history of thought. Long before he was accorded any equivalent honor in Europe, he was invited to give a series of lectures at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts… By 1920 most American physicians interested in neurology and psychiatry had taken some account of Freud's theories. They prided themselves on their eclecticism, and many of them had accepted part of his thought… There was an open-mindedness among American physicians not evident in Europe… Freud's name became the one most often associated with psychotherapy in general, and the distinction between the Freudian approach and any psychotherapy was blurred for many physicians" (DSB). This complete collection of Freud's writings of course includes landmark works such as The Interpretation of Dreams, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Totem and Taboo, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, The Ego and the Id, as well as case histories and papers on sexuality, all in the original German.

A few inner hinges expertly reinforced, near-fine. Scarce and most desirable signed by Freud.