Another 18thc Love-Letter Puzzle (and This One Needs Solving)

Isabella reporting,

I've shared a couple of other 18th-19thc love-letter puzzles on the blog before (here and here), but this one, now in the Graphic Arts Collection of Princeton University's Rare Books and Special Collections, is the first that I've seen that invites solving.

This blog post from the Firestone Library asks readers to print out the two sides of the puzzle, figure out the folds, and, if successful, to share the solution in the comment section. (The images in Princeton's post are larger than I can manage here.)

Now, I'm not sure how they got the pictures of the folded puzzle if they themselves were unable to solve the folds. Perhaps it's been folded together to match the heart for the photo, and inside it's a mismatched mess. And in a further case of unsolvable puzzles, the only way to leave a comment on the post is to possess an active Princeton University webID - which I, for one, do not possess, nor likely ever will.

Whatever. It still seems like a challenge that some of our readers – who surely must include origami experts, cootie-catcher-and-fortune-teller-makers, and the stray skilled road-map-refolder – would enjoy. As with every historical love-letter, I wonder about the ultimate purpose of this letter as well: did it prove the sender's devotion, and help win the recipient's heart?

From Princeton's blog, I also learned that rare book librarians have a  more formal expression for puzzle letters like this one. Such techniques are called  examples of "letterlocking," clever ways to deter snoopy folk and impress the recipient with the amount of time and energy spent on the production. Here's a link to a blog by Jana Dambrogio, the Thomas F. Peterson conservator at M.I.T. libraries, that has many more examples of letterlocking. Pretty cool!

Valentine puzzle, no author known, c1700s. Graphic Arts Collection, Firestone Library, Princeton University.

An Intricate Love Token from 18thc. New England

Isabella reporting,

Earlier this year I shared a charmingly hand-drawn and intricately folded love token, or puzzle purse, created in late 18thc. Pennsylvania by a now unknown German-American. Called a liebesbrief, or love-letter, the watercolor token was folded in a complicated manner that made it as much a puzzle as a letter.

This week a very similar love token, left, appeared on the Houghton Library blog as a new acquisition for their collection. As with the Pennsylvania German liebesbrief, the identity of the creator of this piece has been lost beyond his initials: E.W. He was apparently a rejected suitor who created the token for his beloved, hoping she'd reconsider his marriage proposal. There's no word as to whether his ink and watercolor plea changed her mind, but I like to think that the token's survival over two hundred shows that she preserved the token - and said yes.

I won't paraphrase Houghton's blog post, written by our friend curator John Overholt. You can read it here, plus see more images and a gif of the token unfolding. But I thought it was fascinating that the two pieces - one created in Pennsylvania, and the other in New England -  were so similar both in their design, and their emotion. No matter the medium, love will always find a voice.

Above: Love Token, maker unknown, late 18thc. New England. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

A Charming Hand-Drawn Love Letter, c. 1800

Isabella reporting,

In my praise of primary sources earlier this week, I shared one of the accounting pages from the papers of 18thc. merchant and landowner John Cadwalader. Today I'm featuring an example that's a lot more fun, though just as revealing about the past: a complicated, hand-drawn liebesbrief, Valentine, or love letter, left.

Although the messages on this love letter are in English, it's firmly in the design traditions of the Germans who settled in Pennsylvania in the 1700s. Drawn and brightly colored on paper, this manuscript-style folk art is called fraktur, after the angular style of the writing that is often part of the design. This liebesbrief includes the bright colors and whimsical designs often featured in fraktur, plus clever folds that open into a four-pointed star. The unfolded letter, lower right, is equally enchanting, and reveals the complicated folds.

Each point of the star has a separate couplet:

  My Dearest Dear and blest divine/ I've picture here your heart and mine
  But Cupid with her Cruel dart/ Has deeply pierced my tender heart
  And has between us set Across/ Which makes me to lament my loss
  But I'm in hopes when that is gone/ That both our hearts will be in one

No one today knows who drew this love letter, or for whom it was intended. Still, it's easy to imagine a young woman (or young man: the artist's gender isn't known, either) carefully drawing and writing this piece, neatly coloring the pink hearts and flowers, filling in the background with all those tiny dots, and thinking of the recipient with every stroke of the pen and brush. But was it meant for a faithful sweetheart, or was it a brave first declaration of admiration?

Again, there's no way of knowing. But whoever the recipient was, he or she carefully preserved the liebesbrief - which I'd guess was a very good omen for the sender.

Above: Liebesbrief (Love Letter), Anonymous, c. 1800, Pennsylvania. Collection, The Free Library of Philadelphia.