Collections

The main collection of the Husserl Archives consists in Edmund Husserl’s so called Nachlass, i.e., his philosophical estate. It consists of approximately:

• 40.000 pages of manuscripts
• 10.000 pages typescripts, i.e. transcriptions and related texts by Husserl’s private assistants
• 1.400 letters
• 100 pictures and personal documents
• 2.700 books and 10.000 offprints that belonged to Husserl’s philosophical library.

Since 2015 the physical records of the collections of the Husserl Archives are kept in safe custody by the KU Leuven University Archives (inventarised as Archief van Edmund Husserl) and belong to the special collections of our university. According to the agreement that Herman Leo Van Breda, who rescued Husserl’s manuscript in 1938 from Nazi Germany and founded the Husserl Archives in Leuven, signed with Edmund Husserl’s heirs, the Husserl Archives is responsible for the scientific dissemination and use of Husserl’s writings. Moreover, the Husserl Archives keeps Husserl’s philosophical library which belongs to the library of the Institute for Philosophy. Around one third of the books shows traces of Husserl’s reading (marginal notes and underlining).  

digitalHusserl is committed to making available and searchable high quality reproductions of these items and their textual transcription.