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No Other Love: Letters from Richard Feynman to His Late Wife, Arline

sothebys.com

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Re: No Other Love: Letters from Richard Feynman to His Late Wife, Arline

#4
post #2

> After the initial fear of a cancer prognosis, Arline was diagnosed with lymphatic tuberculosis in 1941, possibly contracted from unpasteurized milk. I want to take a step back and realise how far humans have come in 80 years.

Here here. What a great thing to no longer confront in our daily lives.

Re: No Other Love: Letters from Richard Feynman to His Late Wife, Arline

#7

There is something indescribably vulgar about auctioning off a letter a man wrote to his dead wife. I am quite sure that when Feynman penned that letter he had no idea it would eventually be sold by strangers for profit.

Is it the selling of these historical artifacts that offends you, or just the fact that they have become public documents? I don't think we can categorically call it vulgar to make public the private correspondence of long dead historical figures. They can certainly help us understand those people better.

So is it the fact that someone is making a profit from the transaction that you find disturbing? That doesn't bother me. It just transfers the letters from someone who values the money more to someone who values the documents more. I don't find it tasteless or indecent for the previous or new owner to make that judgement.

Re: No Other Love: Letters from Richard Feynman to His Late Wife, Arline

#9
post #7

There is something indescribably vulgar about auctioning off a letter a man wrote to his dead wife. I am quite sure that when Feynman penned that letter he had no idea it would eventually be sold by strangers for profit.

Is it the selling of these historical artifacts that offends you, or just the fact that they have become public documents? I don't think we can categorically call it vulgar to make public the private correspondence of long dead historical figures. They can certainly help us understand those people better. So is it the fact that someone is making a profit from the transaction that you find disturbing? That doesn't bot…

Not OP but similarly offended.

To me it’s that I assume these items went to a next of kin possibly multiple times to get to a person who cared so little of them that they are cashing in.

It’s not just the letters either. His prestigious awards and other things are for sale on that site.

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