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    Collecting: An Unruly Passion: Psychological Perspectives
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    Collecting: An Unruly Passion: Psychological Perspectives
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    Collecting: An Unruly Passion: Psychological Perspectives
    Ebook313 pages6 hours

    Collecting: An Unruly Passion: Psychological Perspectives

    By Werner Muensterberger

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    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 Honoré 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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateJul 14, 2014
    ISBN9781400863471
    Unavailable
    Collecting: An Unruly Passion: Psychological Perspectives

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    Reviews for Collecting

    3.5/5

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    • 3/5
      Some fascinating case studies despite the (generally) facile psychoanalytic explication.
    • 4/5
      This was disturbing considering I have far too many books. Muensterberger combines a study of the psychology behind the propensity to collect and the biographies of world class hoarders in history. The common thread is the experience of a severe loss or deprivation in childhood which manifests itself in the need to acquire certain objects. The collector imbues the objects with magical properties that provide a degree of comfort, stability and security. However, it's never enough. More is their motto. Some of the notable individuals profiled have turned to crime and bankrupted themselves and their families to acquire the desired objects. However, they have also preserved and protected their collections and bestowed them on a variety of museums and institutes of higher learning. This work does make one want to curb one's personal mania, lest others think we are disturbed. Perhaps it's already too late.