From rare books, valuable sculpture and paintings, the relics of
saints, and porcelain and other precious items, through stamps,
textiles, military ribbons, and shells, to baseball cards, teddy
bears, and mugs, an amazing variety of objects have engaged and
even obsessed collectors through the ages. With this captivating
book the psychoanalyst Werner Muensterberger provides the first
extensive psychological examination of the emotional sources of the
never-ending longing for yet another collectible. Muensterberger's
roster of driven acquisition-hunters includes the dedicated, the
serious, and the infatuated, whose chronic restlessness can be
curbed--and then merely temporarily--only by purchasing,
discovering, receiving, or even stealing a new "find." In an easy,
conversational style, the author discusses the eccentricities of
heads of state, literary figures, artists, and psychoanalytic
patients, all possessed by a need for magic relief from despair and
helplessness--and for the self-healing implied in the phrase "I
can't live without it!" The sketches here are diverse indeed:
Walter Benjamin, Mario Praz, Catherine the Great, Poggio
Bracciolini, Brunelleschi, and Jean de Berry, among others. The
central part of the work explores in detail the personal
circumstances and life history of three individuals: a contemporary
collector, Martin G; the celebrated British book and manuscript
collector Sir Thomas Phillipps, who wanted one copy of every book
in the world; and the great French novelist Honore de Balzac, a
compulsive collector of bric-a-brac who expressed his empathy for
the acquisitive passions of his collector protagonist in Cousin
Pons. In addition, Muensterberger takes the reader on a charming
tour of collecting in the Renaissance and looks at collecting
during the Golden Age of Holland, in the seventeenth century.
Throughout, we enjoy the author's elegant variations on a
complicated theme, stated, much too simply, by John Steinbeck: "I
guess the truth is that I simply like junk." Originally published
in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest
print-on-demand technology to again make available previously
out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton
University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of
these important books while presenting them in durable paperback
and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is
to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in
the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press
since its founding in 1905.
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