Brought to my attention by Paul Di Filippo on FictionMags;
Bruccoli will be remembered best here perhaps for co-editing
THE NEW BLACK MASK magabook series and its successor, the
more conventionally- produced A MATTER OF CRIME.
Todd Mason
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/arts/06bruccoli.html?
_r=1&ref=obituaries&oref=slogin
Matthew J. Bruccoli, 76, Scholar, Dies; Academia's Fitzgerald
Record Keeper
By WILLIAM GRIMES Published: June 6, 2008
Matthew J. Bruccoli, whose biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald
and outpouring of scholarly essays and critical editions made
him the dean of Fitzgerald studies in the United States, died
at his home in Columbia, S.C., on Wednesday. He was 76.
The cause was a glioma, a tumor of the brainstem, said his
wife, Arlyn.
Mr. Bruccoli (pronounced BROOK-uhly), who taught at the
University of South Carolina for nearly 40 years, wrote more
than 50 books on Fitzgerald or Hemingway, notably "Some Sort
of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald," published
in 1981. He and his wife donated 3,000 books and periodical
publications by and about Fitzgerald to the university.
Matthew Joseph Bruccoli was born in the Bronx, where his
father ran a drugstore and where he attended the Bronx High
School of Science. He earned his bachelor's degree at Yale
University in 1953 and briefly attended graduate school at
Cornell University before transferring to the University of
Virginia, where he received a master's degree and a
doctorate.
"It took me seven years because I kept taking time off to
write books," he told The New York Post in 1978.
After teaching at Ohio State University for eight years, he
joined the English department at the University of South
Carolina in 1969. He retired in 2005 as the Emily Brown
Jefferies Distinguished Professor of English but continued to
cut a dash on campus, instantly recognizable by his vintage
red Mercedes convertible, Brooks Brothers suits, Groucho
mustache and bristling crew cut that dated to his Yale days.
His untamed Bronx accent also set him apart.
In the publish-or-perish world of academia, Mr. Bruccoli set
a daunting example. In addition to his voluminous work on
Fitzgerald and Hemingway, he wrote biographies of John
O'Hara, James Gould Cozzens and Ross Macdonald, compiled
descriptive bibliographies of several authors and edited the
letters and notebooks of many others, including Vladimir
Nabokov, whose literature courses he took at Cornell.
"He endeared himself to Nabokov by saying that his reason for
taking the course was, `I like stories,' " his wife said.
"Nabokov thought that was the perfect answer." With Dmitri
Nabokov, the novelist's son, Mr. Bruccoli edited "Vladimir
Nabokov: Selected Letters, 1940-1977," published in
1989.
In his spare time he helped run Bruccoli Clark Layman, a
company that produced reference works of literary and social
history, notably the Dictionary of Literary Biography. He
also edited the Fitzgerald Newsletter from 1958 to 1968 and
the Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual from 1969 to 1979.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by a son, Joseph, of
Columbia, and three daughters: Mary, of Manhattan; Josephine
Owens, of San Francisco; and Arlyn, of Corinth, Vt., as well
as seven grandchildren.
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