Myron Sharaf: Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich (1983)

In this book, Myron Sharaf explodes the myths that have collected around the name “Wilhelm Reich”–the psychoanalytic myth of the early brilliant Reich, and the later insane Reich of orgone energy; the Marxist myth of the radical Reich, and the conservative myth of the Republican Reich. Sharaf’s Reich is profoundly human: complex and contradictory, a generous, loving person capable of extraordinary bursts of bizarre ideas and impassioned cruelty. Of particular interest are the illuminations of the relationship between Reich’s childhood traumas and his major concepts; and the pivotal personal and scientific significance of Freud for Wilhelm Reich.

In 1944, Sharaf met Reich and for the next decade, as student, patient, and coworker, kept careful notes toward the eventual preparation of this biography. He has interviewed Reich’s colleagues, family, friends and enemies, and gathered important papers. From these many sources he has discovered significant unpublished connections between Reich’s personality, his social-intellectual milieu, and his work.

Publisher St Martin’s Press, New York, 1983.
ISBN 0312313705
550 pages

Reich at Wikipedia

PDF (1983 edition)
PDF (2011 edition, without photographs)

Ivan Rumanovský: Jozef Petzval: Život a dielo (1957) [Slovak]

Biografia matematika, fyzika a vynálezcu zo Spišskej Belej od inžiniera a historika filmu Ivana Rumanovského. Jozef Petzval sa preslávil ako viedenský profesor matematiky, ktorý výrazne zasiahol do dejín optiky a fotografie.

Publisher Osveta, Martin, 1957
Priekopníci našej prítomnosti series, Vol. 7
61 pages

Petzval at Monoskop wiki

PDF (no OCR)

Ray Monk: Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (1990–) [EN, ES, GR]

Ludwig Wittgenstein possessed one of the most acute philosophical minds of the twentieth century. In this incisive portrait, Ray Monk offers a unique insight into the life and work of a modern genius. Wittgenstein was a tortured man who fought his calling in philosophy and never fully came to terms with his gifts. A reluctant Cambridge don, he was uncomfortable in the university setting and believed that a professor could not be an authentic philosopher. In friendship and in love, he was attracted to gentle, intelligent younger men, yet he was so troubled by his own sensuality that these attachments existed mostly in his imagination. Based on previously unpublished Wittgenstein letters and writings, this richly textured biography reveals the connection between the tormented private man and the genius who, in the epoch-making works Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations, radically redirected philosophical thought in our time.

Publisher Jonathan Cape, 1990
ISBN 0224027123, 9780224027120
654 pages

review (Colin McGinn, London Review of Books)

google books (EN)

Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (English, PDF, 1990, 92 MB)
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (English, EPUB, 1990)
Ludwig Wittgenstein: El deber de un genio (Spanish, trans. Damian Alou, 2nd ed., 1994/1997, 13 MB, added on 2014-7-28)
Λούντβιχ Βιτγκενστάιν: Το χρέος της μεγαλοφυΐας (Greek, trans. Γρηγόρης Κονδύλης, 1999, 88 MB)