Marie Curie | Autograph letter signed, to Mrs Huggins, 10 November 1903, ABOUT RADIUM

Marie Curie

Autograph letter signed ("M. Curie"), in French, to Mrs [Huggins], the wife of the great English astronomer Sir William Huggins, CONCERNING RESEARCH INTO RADIUM

stating that she is very touched by the letter he has sent her acknowledging the receipt of her thesis, saying that she attaches great value to the kind way in which she speaks about her work, commenting that she has read with great interest the work she has written with Mr Huggins on the spectrum of light emanating from nitrogen, observing that she is struck by the presence of the spectrum of nitrogen which she cannot explain, and wondering whether the nitrogen comes form the air or from the radium; in the second half of the letter she notes that she and her husband are very touched by the recognition of their work accorded to them by the English physicists in awarding them the Davy Medal, adding that they have the best memories of their visit in London, and regrets that she will not be able to accompany M.^r Curie there, as she has been ill recently and her present preoccupations do not permit her to leave Paris

...J'ai lu avec beaucoup d'interêt le travail que vous avez fait avec M^r Huggins sur le spectre de la lumière émise par le radium, et j'ai été très frappée par la présence de spectre de l'azote que je ne puis m'expliquer. Cet azote vient il de l'air ou de radium? Ce serait bien interessant à savoir...

4 pages, 8vo (15.8 x 11.4cm), Paris, 10 November 1903, horizontal fold; together with a 31-page booklet on Marie Curie from the 'Health Heroes' series published by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (1937), printed wrappers, upper wrapper torn

A good, detailed letter written a month before the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Curies and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics 'in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel'.