Included here is basic information about Dr. Laszlo Kreizler from the Alienist books. For Dr. Laszlo Kreizler’s character analysis, quotes made by Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, or character testimonials about Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, please use the menu.
Dr. Laszlo Kreizler Basic Information
Essentials
Name: Dr. Laszlo Kreizler
Birth Date: Approx. 1854
Birth Place: Europe; came to America as a young child when his parents fled persecution following the failed 1848 German Revolution.
Personality: Enigmatic, energetic, intelligent, kind, deep, determined, opinionated, emotionally distant, moralistic
Appearance: The Alienist, 28:
As usual, his suit and coat were black, and as often he was reading the music notices in the Times. His black eyes, so much like a large bird’s, flitted about the paper as he shifted from one foot to the other in sudden, quick movements. He held the Times in his right hand, and his left arm, underdeveloped as the result of a childhood injury, was pulled in close to his body. The left hand occasionally rose to swipe at his neatly trimmed moustache and the small patch of beard under his lower lip. His dark hair, cut far too long to meet the fashion of the day, and swept back on his head, was moist, for he always went hatless; and this, along with the bobbing of his face at the pages before him, only increased the impression of some hungry, restless hawk determined to wring satisfaction from the worrisome world around him.
Parents & Siblings
Father: German, “a wealthy publisher and 1848 republican” (A 25).
Mother: Hungarian.
Siblings: One sister, now married to “an Englishman, a baronet or some such” (A 191).
Working Life
Education: Columbia Medical College in approx. 1871 (Medicine), Harvard Graduate School in approx. 1877 (Psychology)
Occupation and Places of Work: After recieving his medical degree from Columbia, he worked as a junior assistant at the Lunatic Asylum on Blackwells Island and completed further graduate study in psychology at Harvard under the instruction of William James. Once he graduated from Harvard, however, he became an applied psychologist as an independent. He now conducts his clinical work and research with children at the Kreizler Institute for Children, which he founded at 185 — 187 East Broadway in 1885. He also works as an expert witness and consultant for several other mental facilities around New York.
Research: How social and environmental ‘context’ impacts on child development. One of his research papers is entitled “The Relationship of Hygiene and Diet to the Formation of Infantile Neural (Pathways)”.
Private Life
Status: Bachelor.
Home: 283 East Seventeenth Street. (To learn more, see the history blog: Did Dr. Kreizler really live at 283 East 17th Street?)
Transportation: Horses called Frederick (a black gelding) and Gwendolyn (a brown mare). These pull either his Canadian calash or barouche carriages.
Past/Present Servants: Cyrus Montrose, Stevie Taggert, Mary Palmer, Mrs. Leshko.
Friends/Associates: John Moore, Sara Howard, Marcus and Lucius Isaacson, Theodore Roosevelt, Adolf Meyer, Franz Boas, Albert Pinkham Ryder.
Past/Present Love Interests: Frances Blake (as a young man), Mary Palmer (in his 40s).