JUSSERAND, JEAN(-ADRIEN-ANTOINE-)JULES

born Feb. 18, 1855, Lyon died July 18, 1932, Paris French scholar and diplomat who, as French ambassador to Washington, D.C. (190225), helped secure the entry of the United States into World War I. He was a noted Middle English literature scholar. En Amrique jadis et maintenant (1916; With Americans of Past and Present Days, 1917) was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize for history (1917). He was ambassador to the United States under five presidents, beginning with Theodore Roosevelt. His major works on medieval English literature include Les Anglais au moyen ge: l'pope mystique de William Langland (1893; Piers Plowman, 1894) and Histoire littraire du peuple anglais (vol. 1, 1894, vol. 2, 1904; Literary History of the English People).