ONE PASSION, TWO LOVES

In 1869, Heinrich Schilemann, already wealthy and famous in business and archaeological circles, and fresh from an American divorce of the Russian woman who refused to share his life, set about ordering a bride by mail. She was to be Hellenic, indeed to resemble his idea of Helen of Troy. Young, teenaged Sophia Engastromenos was the person he decided upon, and after an impressive ceremony he carried her off to an equally impressive dwelling at 6, Place St. Michel, Paris. There she was tutored in social and scientific graces and she became an accomplished hostess and genuine partner in her husband's explorations at Hissarlik, Mycenae, Tiryns. The one passion of Schliemann's life may have been to find Troy (actually he claimed a deeper meaning in unearthing the development of mankind). But the romance of his total life extended to his death when his wife repeated Helen's lament for Hector which she recited when they first met over twenty years before. Lynn and Gray Poole have touched on both finds and the Schliemann reputation in an affective, facile biography. They have had at their disposal letters and vital documents not before released.