In the world of love letters, a few classics stand out: Abelard and Heloise, Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, Sartre and de Beauvoir. We can now add the correspondence of Fridtjof Nansen and Brenda Ueland... to which one might respond: "Who?"
Nansen was a zoologist and explorer, first recognized for his daring crossing of Greenland's icecap and later for his influence in the creation of an independent Norway. In 1929, the 67-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate became enthralled by 37-year-old Brenda Ueland during a two-day visit to New York and began writing weekly love letters to her until his death a year later. The less-known Ueland was a Minneapolis-born, free spirited bisexual who mixed with Greenwich Village intellectuals, writers and artists before returning to a home on Lake Harriet where she lived to be 93... writing, taking lovers and walking the perimeter of the lake.
Eric Utne, founder of Utne Reader, recently discovered these letters, recognizing in them a remarkable love affair which burned with sexual desire and intellectual passion... but only in writing and for only a year. Ueland's letters to Nansen have been lost, but Utne includes several entries from her books, journals and pictures to help explain their intense attraction. Regardless of whether the Nansen/Ueland letters achieve a place among the "classics," they are further evidence of the power of love and sexual attraction to overcome age, class and distance. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.