Merleau-Ponty to Van Breda (1939)

"Merleau-Ponty was the first researcher from outside of Louvain to consult the archives”

In March 1939 Merleau-Ponty wrote the following a letter to Pater Van Breda (the translation of the letter and the whole story can be found in: H-L. Van Breda, “Merleau-Ponty and the Husserl-Archives at Louvain”)

Monday, March 20 [1939]

Sir,

On the advice of Mr. Jean Hering, I am taking the liberty to request some information about the Nachlass of Husserl. Excuse me for forcing upon you the inconvenience of a response.

I am currently pursuing a study of the “Phenomenology of Perception” for which it would be extremely useful for me to acquaint myself with volume II of the Ideen. There was, I believe, a typed copied that Husserl's students used to consult. Does this copy still exist, and do you think I would be able to consult it in Louvain? If you require letters of introduction from Prof. Brunschvicg or from another professor I would be very much obliged if you would notify me.

Allow me to ask you whether Fink's work, a fragment of which just appeared in the “Revue internationale de philosophie” is to be published soon in Belgium.

Finally, I have been unable to procure a copy of Husserl's posthumous work Erfahrung und Urteil published by Landgrebe at the Academia Verlag in Prague. I don't expect to receive a response directly from Prague. I wonder if it is available in Belgium? (I haven't seen it anywhere in Paris.) I would be very grateful if you could tell me if it is. I am all the more eager to read it since Prof. Koyré has entrusted me with an article for the homage to Husserl upcoming in “Recherches philosophiques” …

Yours truly,
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Charge d’enseignement, Ecole normale superieure