Scope and Content Note
The papers of Edoardo Weiss (1889-1970) span the period 1919-1970. The collection consists of letters received, some originals of letters sent, and typescript, near-print, and printed copies of lectures, articles, and books organized in two series: General Correspondence and Speeches and Writings File. Some of the material is in French, Italian, and German.
The papers in this collection are especially valuable as they relate to Sigmund Freud and another early practitioner of the Viennese psychoanalytic circle, Paul Federn. Weiss did not keep copies of his own correspondence, but contained in his letter files are correspondence and notes from Freud that he received between 1919 and 1939 and that are largely reprinted in Sigmund Freud as a Consultant. Also in the collection is a larger group of letters between Weiss and Federn. The two had met in Vienna when Weiss was a student and Federn a lecturer. They became close friends, and in addition to communicating about private matters, engaged in a systematic discussion of the theory and problems of psychoanalysis. The letters were long, often twenty to twenty-five pages, and significant for their content. Referring to the exchange in 1944, Federn wrote that the correspondence seemed “worth while even to be published.” This portion of the papers is particularly complete since the originals of Weiss’s letters have been added to the papers by Paul Federn’s son, Ernst Federn.
The writings in the Weiss collection date equally from before and after his Italian emigration. Among the early examples are drafts of Agorophobia in the Light of Ego Psychology and a 1930 primer on the origins of psychoanalysis. Later writings include various materials on the id and the ego; papers on narcissism, female homosexuality, and the reality of th death instinct; and seminar lecturers given by Weiss at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. In accordance with the expressed wish of Paul Federn, Weiss was the editor of Ego Psychology and the Psychoses, a manuscript begun by Federn before his death by suicide in 1950. Read in conjunction with the two friends’ long correspondence and with other Federn writings in this collection, the manuscript further documents their long relationship.
Other correspondents include Ernst Federn, Ernest Jones, Enrico Agostino Morselli, and Julius von Wagner-Jauregg.