The Correspondence of János Arany and Sándor Petőfi

The two giants of Hungarian poetry, János Arany and Sándor Petőfi were close friends from February 1847, when Petőfi read Arany’s Toldi, until July 1849, when Petőfi died.

Their correspondence, as Gyula Illyés wrote in his book on Petőfi, is the beginning of “the most beautiful friendship of the Hungarian literary history. No novel can present self-sacrifice and altruism so faithfully as the letters of these two poets to and about each other. Their correspondence is the most perfect work in world literature that mirrors the friendship of two remarkable men.” During those two and a half years, Arany and Petőfi wrote more that sixty letters to each other, revealing their literary, political and patriotic views, as well as the intimate moments of their private lives.