Description
CATALOG OF WILHELM REICH’S PERSONAL LIBRARY
For years, visitors to the Wilhelm Reich Museum have commented on Reich’s impressive personal library which remains largely intact on the bookshelves of his study on the second floor of the Orgone Energy Observatory. Serious scholars, particularly, often remark on Reich’s intellectual breadth and curiosity as evident by this eclectic collection.
To anyone interested in Reich’s life and work, especially the serious scholar, this catalog provides a deeper understanding of Reich’s intellectual pursuits and the development of his work.
Reich himself recognized the value of his personal library to future generations. In his Last Will & Testament–in stipulating that Orgonon, his property in Rangeley, Maine, should be operated in the future as the Wilhelm Reich Museum–he wrote:
“During the years following 1949 my life was running its course within and around the walls of the Orgone Energy Observatory. I supervised the building myself for two summers; I paid out upwards of $35,000 from my privately earned possessions for the construction. I have collected all of the pertinent materials such as instruments which served the Discovery of the Life Energy, the documents which were witnesses to labors of some 30 years and the library of a few thousand volumes, collected painstakingly over the same stretch of time and amply used in my researches and writing…”
(March 1957)
The Wilhelm Reich Museum gratefully acknowledges Philip W. Bennett, Ph.D., for his generous contribution of time and expertise in the preparation of this catalog.
