“I used to think that people with strong opinions and wills of their own shouldn’t marry, but I know now that it does turn out well sometimes!” wrote L Barbara Bradby to her friend Mary Murray in 1901, and indeed in turned well for her, as together with her husband J Lawrence Hammond, they co-authored 8 books between 1911 and 1934. The Hammonds were not the only married couple who collaborated during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Combining cases from England and the United States, this paper asks how love and intellectual work intertwined during this period and how it can shed light on issues in both the history of gender and the history of science.