The Marriage Letters of Joseph Deym and Josephine Brunsvik-Deym

Countess Josephine Brunsvik-Deym-Stackelberg was the woman Beethoven loved, his “only beloved,” his “everything,” and the “angel of my heart.” Nowhere does she come more vividly to life than in the 108 surviving letters that Josephine and her first husband, Count Joseph Deym exchanged between 1800 and 1803. They reveal the day-to-day concerns and social circumstances of a young wife and mother of noble birth, highly intelligent and musical, in the early nineteenth century. Joseph was a famous entrepreneur and wax-figure artist, and the Deym house on Rotenturmtor was Vienna’s largest tourist attraction. The richly annotated first edition of the marriage letters is rounded off by official documents and letters concerning the Deym’s wedding and Joseph’s death. Beethoven, who was Josephine’s piano teacher for several years and often performed in her Viennese home, is mentioned repeatedly in other Brunsvik family letters of these years, here edited in English translation together with the memoirs of Josephine’s elder sister Therese. Two final chapters provide detailed biographical material on Joseph Deym and his wax museum, and on the Brunsvik family.