Teilhard and Leroy

The library's unique holdings about the theologian and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin have been enriched by several recent donations. We are deeply grateful to their donors as well as to Madame Solange Soulie of Neuilly, France, whose kind offices brought some of these collections to Georgetown.

Madame Diane de Margerie of Paris, France made a gift of a fascinating group of mimeographed and printed articles by Teilhard. Four of these bear Teilhard's inscriptions to her parents, Ambassador Roland and Mme. de Margerie, whom he had first known in China. Also included are photocopies and transcriptions of 11 Teilhard letters to the de Margerie family.

Mrs. Janetta Warre of Oakham, England, generously presented more than a hundred original letters by her friend and Teilhard's intimate colleague, Pierre Leroy, S.J., who from 1940 to 1946 was the director of the Geobiological Institute in Peking which the two Jesuits founded together. The correspondence covers the last twelve years of Leroy's life (he died on May 23, 1992), and deals with both Teilhard's writings and the arrangements for the Teilhard de Chardin Centenary Exhibition. It was through the efforts of Mrs. Warre that this celebrated exhibition was brought from Paris to London in 1983.

Noted painter M. Constantin Kluge of Montlognon, France, also gave a series of 34 lengthy letters by Pierre Leroy. Many of these contain Leroy's insights into Teilhard's life during their residence together in wartime Shanghai, where Kluge first became friendly with the two. Another mutual friend was Madame Claude Riviere, head of the French radio station in Shanghai, who is frequently mentioned in the correspondence. A transcription of the letters carefully prepared by Mme. Soulie is available.

Mademoiselle Marie-Therese Cosme of Paris, France donated a number of interesting publications by Pierre Leroy, one of which is a copy of Leroy's 1952 eulogy of her father, Ambassador Henry Cosme, who had been posted in China during the 1930s.

Library Associates interested in learning more about Teilhard's life might wish to take advantage of their 20 percent discount with the Georgetown University Press and purchase the recently published The Letters of Teilhard de Chardin & Lucile Swan. This is a deeply moving story of Teilhard's friendship with the American sculptor, Lucile Swan, whom he met in 1929 at a dinner party in Peking. Their friendship was to last for 25 years and is vividly recorded in this correspondence. The forward by Pierre Leroy was completed shortly before his death.