Albert Einstein, Mileva Maric: The Love Letters

Albert Einstein

Published by Princeton University Press 1992

Albert Einstein, Mileva Maric

The Love Letters

Albert Einstein
Edited by: Jürgen Renn and Robert Schulmann
Translated by: Shawn Smith

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691215037

Overview
Contents

About this book

In 1903, despite the vehement objections of his parents, Albert Einstein married Mileva Maric, the companion, colleague, and confidante whose influence on his most creative years has given rise to much speculation. Beginning in 1897, after Einstein and Maric met as students at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic, and ending shortly after their marriage, these fifty-four love letters offer a rare glimpse into Einstein's relationship with his first wife while shedding light on his intellectual development in the period before the annus mirabilis of 1905. Unlike the picture of Einstein the lone, isolated thinker of Princeton, he appears here both as the burgeoning enfant terrible of science and as an amorous young man beset, along with his fiance, by financial and personal struggles--among them the illegitimate birth of their daughter, whose existence is known only by these letters. Describing his conflicts with professors and other scientists, his arguments with his mother over Maric, and his difficulty obtaining an academic position after graduation, the letters enable us to reconstruct the youthful Einstein with an unprecedented immediacy. His love for Maric, whom he describes as "a creature who is my equal, and who is as strong and independent as I am," brings forth his serious as well as playful, often theatrical nature. After their marriage, however, Maric becomes less his intellectual companion, and, failing to acquire a teaching certificate, she subordinates her professional goals to his. In the final letters Einstein has obtained a position at the Swiss Patent Office and mentions their daughter one last time to his wife in Hungary, where she is assumed to have placed the girl in the care of relatives. Informative, entertaining, and often very moving, this collection of letters captures for scientists and general readers alike a little known yet crucial period in Einstein's life.

Author / Editor information

Jürgen Renn, Assistant Professor in the University Professors Program at Boston University, and Robert Schulmann, Assistant Professor of History at Boston University, are coeditors of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein.

Reviews

"This illuminating and surprising collection opens with an excellent introduction that sets the stage for this record of a difficult romance."

"This excellent book will be of especial interest to academics and Einstein devotees."

"Will further undermine the stereotype and reward all who delight in the company of young people deliciously in love. We all have trunks in the attic harboring letters that reveal the same impatience with parents, the same youthful naïveté, passion and delight. But this was Einstein, and that makes all the difference."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Foreword Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Textual Note Publicly Available Download PDF	xxix
Translator's Note Publicly Available Download PDF	xxxi
1 Marie to Einstein, after 20 October 1897 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
2 Einstein to Marie, 16 February 1898 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	4
3 Einstein to Marie, after 16 April 1898 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	6
4 Einstein to Marie, after 16 April 1898 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	6
5 Einstein to Marie, after 28 November 1898 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	7
6 Einstein to Marie, 13 or 20 March 1899 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	7
7 Einstein to Marie, early August 1899 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
8 Einstein to Marie, 10? August 1899 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	10
9 Marie to Einstein, after 10 August-before 10 September 1899 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	12
10 Einstein to Marie, 10 September 1899 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
11 Einstein to Marie, 28? September 1899 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
12 Einstein to Marie, 10 October 1899 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
13 Marie to Einstein, 1900? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	18
14 Einstein to Marie, 29? July 1900 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
15 Einstein to Marie, 1 August 1900 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
16 Einstein to Marie, 6 August 1900 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	22
17 Einstein to Marie, 9? August 1900 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
18 Einstein to Marie, 14? August 1900 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
19 Einstein to Marie, 20 August 1900 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
20 Einstein to Marie, 30 August or 6 September 1900 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
21 Einstein to Marie, 13? September 1900 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
22 Einstein to Marie, 19 September 1900 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
23 Einstein to Marie, 3 October 1900 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
24 Einstein to Marie, 23 March 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	36
25 Einstein to Marie, 27 March 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	38
26 Einstein to Marie, 4 April 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
27 Einstein to Marie, 10 April 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
28 Einstein to Marie, 15 April 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	44
29 Einstein to Marie, 30 April 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	46
30 Marie to Einstein, 2 May 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
31 Marie to Einstein, 3 May 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
32 Einstein to Marie, 9 May 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
33 Einstein to Marie, second half of May? 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
34 Marie to Einstein, second half of May? 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
35 Einstein to Marie, second half of May? 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
36 Einstein to Marie, 28? May 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
37 Einstein to Marie, 4? June 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
38 Einstein to Marie, 7? July 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
39 Marie to Einstein, ca. 8 July 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
40 Einstein to Marie, 22? July 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
41 Marie to Einstein, 31? July 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
42 Marie to Einstein, early November 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
43 Marie to Einstein, 13 November 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
44 Einstein to Marie, 28 November 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
45 Einstein to Marie, 12 December 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
46 Einstein to Marie, 17 December 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
47 Einstein to Marie, 19 December 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
48 Einstein to Marie, 28 December 1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
49 Einstein to Marie, 4 February 1902 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
50 Einstein to Marie, 8? February 1902 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
51 Einstein to Marie, 17? February 1902 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	76
52 Einstein to Marie, 28 June 1902 or later Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
53 Einstein-Maric to Einstein, 27 August 1903 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	78
54 Einstein to Einstein-Maric, 19? September 1903 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	78
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
Literature Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103