Image: This biography of Freud (Freud Museum London)
The museum’s fundraising appeal allows visitors to select a book from the library in need of restoration
Sigmund Freud’s library of over 1,600 books, including important at-risk titles in need of conservation, are up for ‘adoption’ from London’s Freud Museum.
The museum’s appeal is hoped to help save Sigmund Freud’s library of over 1,600 books by raising a total of £30,000.
The charity run museum has put specific books from the library up for ‘adoption’ in order to pay for conservation and restoration. On offer are titles including The Works of Lord Byron.
"Good books… are books to which one stands in rather the same relationship as to “good” friends, to whom one owes a part of one’s knowledge of life and view of the world…" Sigmund Freud, 1907
Donate or Adopt a Book now and help preserve Freud's library.https://t.co/XqBnsfjvX5 pic.twitter.com/EofFEpNdHk— Freud Museum London (@FreudMusLondon) March 6, 2024
In return for adopting a book, donors will receive a special Sigmund Freud Ex-Libris Certificate, updates on the progress of the conservation work, and on completion will be invited to meet the museum’s curator to see the book in person.
Books to be adopted are priced at £700 or more, but donors are also able to donate any amount to the appeal without adopting a book.
The museum explains that when Freud fled from Nazi persecution in Vienna 1938, and was unable to bring his entire library with him to London. It believes that the titles he did bring are “those that meant the most to him”.
