NAM logo, by David Le Conte

Jules Janssen's in and out correspondence:
A project for an annotated edition to be published in 2007

Francoise Launay (Observatoire de Meudon)

Jules Janssen (1824-1907) is well known as the founder of the "Observatoire d'Astronomie Physique de Paris, sis a Meudon", the Director of which he had been for 32 years, and of the later "Observatoire du mont Blanc", an audacious and early attempt to exploit the advantages of observing from high mountains. Curiously enough, however, he was probably better recognized as a man of the first rank by his "brother pioneers in the new field of work which he had been among the first to till" (as Sir Norman Lockyer himself wrote) than he is remembered by most astrophysicists of today. The hundredth anniversary of his death will provide a good opportunity to study and feature him as he undoubtedly deserves.

In addition to about 400 articles, lectures and speeches that this passionate lover of the Sun, tireless hunter of eclipses, keen observer of spectral lines and ingenious instrument designer published as a scientist, Janssen's correspondence obviously provides a rich quarry of extra information about his strong and captivating personality. Fortunately, when she died in 1924, Miss Antoinette Janssen, the only daughter of the Grand Old Man, bequeathed all the letters her parents received at home to the Library of the "Institut de France" in Paris.

These letters are now preserved there in five guard books which contain about 360 letters from Jules Janssen to his wife, about 260 letters from Mrs Janssen to her husband and about 1,000 other letters Jules Janssen received from correspondants in France and abroad, the transcription of which was begun a few years ago and is still in progress. Not so easy is to trace the outgoing letters and to transcribe them, and any help would be gratefully appreciated !

Maintained by Ian Howarth