Fonds EDDN - Papers of Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

Related papers elsewhere in Trinity College Library are listed in the card index of Modern Manuscripts. The most significant are Eddington’s Notebook, 1905–39 (Add. Ms. b. 48), the autograph manuscript of The Nature of the Physical World, 1928 (O.11.25), thirteen juvenile essays, 1896–8 (O.11.22), and copies of correspondence to Hermann Weyl, 1918–44 (Add. Ms. a. 238/10–24). The last are probably copies of the papers at the ETH Bibliothek, Zürich (see below). The Library also possesses copies of most of Eddington’s books and a presentation copy of Douglas’s biography.

Related papers held by other institutions include correspondence with Hermann Weyl (ETH Bibliothek, Zürich), Albert Einstein (Hebrew University, Jerusalem), Herbert Dingle (Imperial College, London), Lord Cherwell (Nuffield College, Oxford), and Sir Joseph Larmor (Royal Society, London). The Eddington papers at Queen’s College, Ontario, are described in the online catalogue as follows:

‘The collection consists of both originals and copies of correspondence between Eddington and other scientists. … The correspondents include Albert Einstein, Erwin Shrodinger, Harlow Shapley, Henry Norris Russell, Walter S. Adams and J.C. Kapetyn [sic]. Also included are two copies of pages from the manuscripts, Differentiation of any tensor (1918) and Mass-luminosity equation (1924).’

Photographs of pages from the two manuscripts mentioned are reproduced as Plates 6 and 7 in Professor Vibert Douglas’s biography. Douglas’s own papers, held at the same university, include correspondence with Albert Einstein and others about Eddington.

Eddington’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states that some of his papers are held at the Institute of Astronomy, but there are in fact no such papers there, only printed works and memorabilia, such as his chair and some studio photographs. The papers of the Institute itself are in the University Library, catalogued with the Archives of the University Observatory, etc., but they are mainly concerned with the management of the Observatory.