Catalogue description SECTION J VISITS, LECTURES, CONFERENCES

This section illustrates exceptionally well the appropriateness of Peierls's title Bird of Passage for his autobiography, covering as it does principally the period after 1974 when he and Genia could indulge their love of travel and the nomadic life.

The main sequence (J.1-J.121) is of visits fulfilled. Invitations to lecture and visit which Peierls declined are at J.122 and J.123-J.128 respectively.

An Addendum at J.129-J.143 contains notes, drafts and information relating to Peierls's lectures on all topics given mainly in the 1980s, received after his death.

There were a few fixed points, such as the part-time professorship which Peierls called 'one foot in Seattle' (dealt with in section H), regular visits to Orsay and Saclay, and attendance at the annual Pugwash Conferences which are documented in section C. Occasionally Peierls would accept longer commitments of several months, in Sydney, Leiden or Brazil for example, and he and Genia usually spent the summer months in their Oxford home. Generally speaking, however, they arranged a number of short visits in a careful sequence which allowed them to circumnavigate the world more or less annually. Many of these visits, especially as the Peierls got into their nomadic stride, required lengthy planning and correspondence extending over several years. They are also sometimes difficult to date precisely, and are certainly not all fully documented; in this respect Peierls's circular letters to his family and friends (A.26, A.27) are invaluable in keeping track of their movements.

After Genia's death in 1986, there is a gap in the foreign engagements, but Peierls soon resumed his travels and continued them with little slackening until his own health became more frail.