[Gutenberg 52933] • Uranie

Nicolas Camille Flammarion (1842-1925) was a French astronomer and author. He was usually credited as Camille Flammarion. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and several works about Spiritualism and related topics. He also published the magazine LaAstronomie, starting in 1882. He maintained a private observatory at Juvisy-sur-Orge, France. He was a founder and the first president of the Societe Astronomique de France, which originally had its own independent journal, BSAF (Bulletin de la Societe Astronomique de France), first published in 1887. He was the first to suggest the names Triton and Amalthea for moons of Neptune and Jupiter, respectively, although these names were not officially adopted until many decades later. His spiritualism studies influenced also some of his science fiction. Other than that his writing about other worlds adhered fairly closely to then current ideas in evolutionary theory and astronomy. Amongst his other works are: The Atmosphere (1873), Popular Astronomy (1907), Astronomy for Amateurs (1904), Omega: The Last Days of the World and Death and its Mystery.