Biographical Notice

This short piece is the first full English translation of the biographical notice that Durkheim wrote on the occasion of the death of his best school friend, Victor Hommay, in 1886. The text has been previously discussed and translated in part by Lukes (1973) and in Macey's translation of Fournier's 2007 work (Fournier 2013). The translator argues that access to these kinds of biographical details serves to shed light on shared experiences between the author and the reader, which can be especially beneficial in teaching Durkheim to undergraduate students.