Introduction

Eighty-eight letters were unearthed while sifting through the Hicks papers at the library of the University of Hyogo, Japan, in December 2003. They had been written between September and December 1935, when John Hicks left the LSE for Cambridge, having being appointed university lecturer and fellow of Gonville and Caius College, while Ursula (then Webb) was at the LSE, where she had been a student from 1929 and was currently a member of the staff. The letters cover the three months preceding their wedding, which took place in London, on December 17, 1935.

It is a daily exchange, with just the odd interruption marking the days when they would visit each other (mostly at weekends) either in Cambridge or in London. It is a portrait of a marriage in the making, a picture of an academic milieu and a glimpse into British society in the 1930s.

It may be objected that making them public is barely justified by the copyright permission obtained with purchase of the papers, but we sincerely hope that disclosure of them will be accepted as a tribute to – rather than an intrusion into – their relationship.

A few words of justification are also needed on the relevance of the correspondence in reconstructing ideas as well as facts. Most of our understanding of the past is heavily dependent on the sources we have access to.