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In my review of the first volume of Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays's Brautbriefe, I sang my praises of its exemplary scholarly apparatus.1 My review of the second volume begins by marking bis in the margin. The notes and footnoting are as excellent as before. And the story that the letters tell continues along the same lines as before. But with some important developments and differences.
During the five and a half months covered by this second volume (from 12 July 1883 to 31 December 1883), the couple would write 278 letters. As there were only 231 letters during the entire first year of the correspondence (from 11 June 1882 to 12 July 1883), this means the rate had almost doubled. There was a good reason for that. For most of the previous year Martha was living in Vienna and the couple were able to meet regularly. But in mid-June 1883 ‘Mama’ (Emmeline Bernays) took her daughters back to their native Wandsbek, close to Hamburg, and the engaged couple would not meet again until September 1884.
This puts us readers in a privileged position. There are no more undocumented personal encounters in this period. Now the entire relationship is there on the pages in front of us. We are almost in their situation, working out the concealed sense of the other's letters. Each of them is defining their new identity as engaged lover by reference to the