Jules François Christophe

Born on 21 May 1840, this French writer is documented by the Bibliothèque nationale de France as Jules Christophe, sometimes given more fully as Jules-François Christophe. The historical record around his later life is a little thin, but he was still active into the late 19th century and is associated with French literary and scholarly work.

A notice from the Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques says he entered the Ministry of War at age twenty and spent his whole career there, eventually reaching the rank of sous-chef de bureau de 2ème classe in 1889. Alongside that civil-service career, he published literary work and criticism, including Léon Duvauchel. Étude littéraire.

He is best remembered as the co-author, with Anatole Cerfberr, of Répertoire de la Comédie humaine de H. de Balzac, an ambitious guide to the characters and connections in Balzac’s fiction. That book helped map the dense, recurring cast of La Comédie humaine, and it remains the work most closely linked with his name in library and public-domain records.