Over the course of 1918-1923, Erwin and Eleanor exchanged hundreds of letters.

The novel depicts the start of the correspondence accurately; Erwin sent Eleanor a 1919 New Year card, to which Eleanor responded, but then thought better of the situation, and burned it before she left Norman in May of that year. The letter that arrives on Valentine’s Day is portrayed and transcribed with as much accuracy as I could muster, because it was this letter that truly marked the beginning of their friendship.

Many of the early letters in 1920 portrayed in the novel stay somewhat true to the original transcriptions, albeit condensed and combined in many cases. Their 1920 and 1921 letters served to build a strong foundation for their friendship, and for their trust and faith in each other. Erwin really did write that proposal letter, on Armistice Day in 1921. And they really hadn’t seen each other since that first night they met in 1918.

From the time of their engagement, the letters became far more frequent – sometimes up to two a day, so it was necessary to pare the novelized correspondence way down. Sometimes what appears as one letter was, in reality, more like three or four, edited together and sometimes augmented to hew to the novel’s arc.

The novel depicts a wedding in June of 1922. The reality, however, was quite a bit different. In June of 1922, Eleanor did indeed take Mr. Brewer up on the summer position at OU in Norman. And then she found another position the following year at Randolph Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia. She abided much longer than her character in the novel, but collapsed from exhaustion and was admitted to the infirmary in spring of 1923. By then, plans were already in place to marry that summer, and they did, on June 30, 1923.

Over the entire course of their four and a half year courtship correspondence, they saw each other four times.

The entire assembled collection of courtship correspondence