Letters to Father: Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo, 1623-1633

The fascinating letters of Galileo's eldest daughter to her father

Placed in a convent at the age of thirteen, Virginia Galilei, Galileo's eldest daughter, wrote to her father continually. Now Dava Sobel has translated into English all 124 surviving letters that Virginia (renamed Suor Maria Celeste at the convent) wrote to Galileo. The letters span a dramatic decade that included the Thirty Years' War, the bubonic plague, and the development of Galileo's own universe-changing discoveries. Suor Maria Celeste's letters touch on these events, but mostly they focus on details of everyday life that connect her and her father: descriptions of confections she sent to him; news of his estate, which she managed while he was on trial; a request for Galileo to fix the convent clock. Her prose reveals an exceptional woman and presents a memorable portrait of deep affection between a father and daughter.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author: Suor Maria Celeste
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 12/31/2002
Pages: 176
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.31lbs
Size: 7.77h x 5.05w x 0.52d
ISBN: 9780142437155

About the Author
Dava Sobel is an award-winning former science writer for The New York Times. The author of the bestselling Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, Sobel's work has also appeared in Audubon, Discover, Life, and The New Yorker.