Liebe schreiben: Paarkorrespondenzen im Kontext des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts ed. by Ingrid Bauer and Christa Hämmerle (review)

The essay volume Liebe schreiben is an outstanding example of just how fruitful a well- organized long-term group project can be. Sponsored by the Austrian "Wissenschaftsfonds FWF" (Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung) from May 2010 to April 2014 and directed by the historians Ingrid Bauer and Christa Hämmerle, the FWF project "(Über) Liebe schreiben" is successfully concluded with this volume, which consists of an in-depth introduction and eight essays of consistently high quality. The editors also include eight pages of color photographs from select artifacts covering the time span of their study, which are an apt complement to essays. The letters between the couples have much to say about the history of emotions and particularly love, the historical contexts of "private" writing, and changes and discontinuities of discourses and practices in heterosexual relationships. As a whole the volume shines light on the interplay of historical, political, socioeconomic and cultural contexts with the expression of emotions and heterosexual relationships.

In the introduction Bauer and Hämmerle present the parameters of the project, beginning with the choice of letters. The working group selected the bulk of the corpus studied from letters housed at the University of Vienna as part of the "Sammlung Frauennachlässe" collection. The team received additional letters as a result of calls they issued and the positive publicity the project garnered. The group ultimately settled on seventy correspondences, which cover roughly a hundred years from the late nineteenth century through the twentieth century. With few exceptions the correspondents are from the western part of Cisleithania and present-day Austria. Bauer and Hämmerle acknowledge that letters from representatives of the working class are few and far between. Moreover, the group was unable to add exchanges between gay and lesbian pairs. As the editors note, they have more letters from men than women, which, they suggest, is related to gendered practices of collection and saving letters. Some of the exchanges extend over sixty years, but most focus on the early phases of love relationships—the establishment of a relationship, the first declarations of love, efforts to solidify and maintain the relationship, and future plans for the twosome.

Although each essay can stand alone, read as a whole they provide evidence of the rewards of collaborative work. Roughly following a similar pattern, each author clearly states the questions she addresses and situates her work within the academic discussions on the topic. Six essays focus on a limited stretch of time, yet in their totality cover a hundred years. In her essay "Gefühle erwünscht: Normiertes Liebeswerben in Verlobungskorrespondenzen aus den 1860er/70er Jahren?" which explores the exchange of two couples, Ines Rebhan-Glück uncovers unexpected gendered aspects of the expression of love. Very much in line with examples from letter-writing breviers of the period, men are effusive in expressing their emotion, while women are much more reserved in expression emotions. In "'[…] mein Eheweib und nicht mein College'? Liebe und Beruf(ung) in Paarkorrespondenzen vor dem Hintergrund der Frauenenbewegung/en um 1900," Nina Verheyen examines the ways in which debates on women's position in society were reflected in letters of five couples written between 1900 and the outbreak of World War I. Barbara Asen's essay "'[…] nicht nur Gattin, sondern auch treue Kameradin': Zur Konstruktion von Liebesbeziehungen in der Briefkommunikation von Paaren der Zwischenkriegszeit" examines five epistolary exchanges written between 1918 and 1931, four from bourgeois couples and one between a domestic servant and the son of her employer. The author situates the exchanges in a phase of intensive shifts in gender roles. The selection allows her to illustrate that despite awareness of changing gender roles, the attitudes of the bourgeois women were quite varied and each partner had quite different expectations for his or her respective mate. With the inclusion of the letters from the young woman working as a...