"Looking Back Will Still Keep Us Looking Forward": A Letter from Arthur Corbin to Soia Mentschikoff upon the Death of Karl Llewellyn

Arthur Linton Corbin (1874-1967), Karl N. Llewellyn (1893-1962), and Soia Mentschikoff (Llewellyn's third wife, 1913-1984) are three important figures in the history of law in the United States in the twentieth century. They are striking not only for their contributions to contracts, commercial law, and jurisprudence, but also as distinctive personalities. Here, published for the first time, is a letter that poignantly and vividly throws light on their personal and professional relationships. Karl Llewellyn died unexpectedly on February 13, 1962.

The document that is reproduced and transcribed below, dated the day after Llewellyn's death, is a letter of condolence from Corbin to Mentschikoff, written immediately on hearing the news. It was discovered in April 2012 among Mentschikoff s papers, when the bulk of her papers were being prepared for transfer from the University of Miami to the Special Collections at the University of Chicago, where they joined the Karl Llewellyn Papers and an earlier collection of Mentschikoff Papers.