Saved from confiscation and probable destruction by the Nazis after the occupation of Austria in 1938, the Brautbriefe are the letters that Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays exchanged from June 1882 and May 1886, during the long and painful period of their engagement. The Brautbriefe are part of a wider collection of personal and official letters, manuscripts, and documents related to the life and work of Freud and his relatives, friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Freud and his family managed to bring the collection to London in 1938, together with a large and substantial part of Freud's library and precious collection of antiquities. For more than ten years the letters between Freud and Martha have remained carefully protected by Freud's family, held at 20 Maresfield Gardens, London NW3. *For J. Starobinski Int J Psychoanal (2013) 94:863-935