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Although Freud's devotion to his children has long been recognized (Jones 1953-57, 2:387-89), these letters to the five oldest movingly and abundantly testify to it.1 With a few exceptions (mostly notes to his grandchildren), Freud wrote all of the letters in this collection when his children were taking their first steps towards independence or had become adults. Little of the children's part of the correspondence is available, and what the editor excerpts justifies his decision to use it selectively. Consequently, this collection almost exclusively presents Freud as the writer of letters to his adult children and their spouses. Almost all of his letters to these family members are included; only a few published elsewhere (e.g., Freud 2002) that do not concern the father-child relationship have been omitted.
The inclusion of Freud's letters to his sons- and daughters-in-law was a particularly happy decision because they reveal how thoroughly he accepted the partners chosen by his children. Convinced that his daughter should choose her own husband but anxious about her choice at an age earlier than he deemed appropriate for her to marry, Freud frankly told Mathilde his reservations about Robert Hollitscher. The extant correspondence with Math and Rob is not extensive but reveals that Freud, at the very least, graciously acquiesced in his daughter's choice; in any event, by 1931 he was supporting the couple once Robert's business affairs had collapsed (28).
Freud's relationship with Max Halberstadt, Sophie's husband, was much more cordial. Max, a distant relation of Martha Freud, had photographed Freud before meeting Sophie, and Freud's first personal letter to him, on the superfluousness of