TLS signed “A. Einstein,” one page, 8.5 x 11, blindstamped personal letterhead, November 11, 1948. Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Bryan, in full: “I was very much touched by your kindness to send me the wonderful honey. Mrs. Fantova described how the business of filling the honey into the glasses has been performed and how much fun it was for the laborers. With my very best thanks and kind regards.” In fine condition.
Johanna Fantova, a former Princeton librarian, met Einstein in the 1920s in Europe and then renewed their friendship in the United States during World War II. The two ate dinners and went sailing together in Princeton; she cut his hair, and he wrote poems to her. They also spoke by telephone two or three evenings a week. Fantova, who many around campus believed was Einstein's last girlfriend, compiled notes from their conversations into a 62-page manuscript, written in German and covering the period from October 1953 to Einstein's death in April 1955. The manuscript, which Fantova had unsuccessfully tried to publish before she died in 1981, was discovered in 2004 by a Princeton librarian researching Fantova.
In an introduction to the manuscript, Fantova wrote that she intended it to ‘cast some additional light on our understanding of Einstein, not the great man who became a legend during his own lifetime, not on Einstein the renowned scientist, but on Einstein, the humanitarian.’ The manuscript contained Einstein's musings on subjects, profound and mundane, from physics and current events to the tribulations of growing old. In their conversations, Einstein and Fantova often discussed the many old friends, acquaintances, and strangers who visited the Einstein household, including Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the Institute for Advanced Study where Einstein worked. Oppenheimer, whom Einstein held in high regard, had led the U.S. effort to build the atomic bomb but was later persecuted by Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. In Fantova's accounts, the McCarthy hearings were a frequent subject of conversation: ‘This political persecution of his associate was a source of bitter disillusionment.’
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