This is a collection of letters (and telegrams) written by Umberto Nobile in Italy to Hermine Speier during her time in Geneva, Basel, and Frankfurt in April and May of 1938. During this period, Nobile is regularly commuting by train between Rome, where he lives, and Naples, where he is working as a professor of aeronautical engineering at the University of Naples. He tells Speier when new engineering possibilities occur to him, and he expresses nostalgia for the days in which, immediately upon conceiving a new idea, he had at his disposal the means to realize it – presumably in reference to his career prior to his resignation from the air force in 1929. (The air force had indeed afforded him the opportunity to oversee airship construction and realize new airship designs, which led him to design and pilot the two polar airships Norge and Italia, which flew in 1926 and 1928 respectively.) Also during these months, he repeatedly mentions developments in the publication and subsequent translation of his book (whose title he does not mention, but he presumably refers to La preparazione e i risultati scientifici della spedizione polare dell’“Italia”, published in 1938). Nobile complains often of the rheumatism in his leg and the stomach problems caused by colitis that perpetually plague him and even cause him to remain bedridden on a number of occasions during this period. It is clear that his doctors know very little about his maladies and, as such, can offer him little relief beyond shots to reduce pain, which he reports help marginally. He continues to keep Speier apprised of the goings-on at her home - the mail she receives, the health of her plants, etc. – and he gives her frequent updates on weather changes in her home city of Rome. Nobile’s brother Donato and his family visit him in Rome in May. Nobile expresses a bout of particular anxiety and sadness at the end of May that coincides with the ten-year anniversary of his infamously failed Italia expedition. It is clear based on Nobile’s letters that Speier, who by this time has been living in Rome for ten years, is on her annual trip to visit her family in Frankfurt but has this year decided to first stop in Geneva for a relaxing stay with friends at their country home. Speier and Nobile intend to meet up for a visit somewhere in between Rome and Frankfurt at the end of May, and much of their correspondence during the weeks prior attempts to work out the precise dates and location of their meeting.