The heart of Brentano’s Emmerick archive is the collection of his “diaries” from Dülmen. Although these look like authentic transcripts of conversations, they are in fact literary texts that were for the most part written after Emmerick’s death and are supplemented by additional sources. As a memory aid, Brentano used the notes he had written in pencil at Emmerick’s sickbed. Almost all of these are now lost. In 1855, the Redemptorist priest Carl Erhard Schmoeger acquired the archive and used the texts for several books. He censored many parts by cutting out passages he found objectionable.