This book presents a selection of more than 200 drawings and books created by different mental patients between 1890 and 1920. The collection was assembled at the beginning of the 1920s in the University of Heidelberg, under the initiative of the psychiatrist and art historian Hans Prinzhorn (1886-1933), who wished to open a museum. Of extraordinary intensity and beauty, these works are a prime example of the painful effort of the artist-patient to reconcile his or her internal, personal existence with the demands of external forces.