GIFFORD, (Charles) Henry 1913-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born June 17, 1913, in London, England; died November 23, 2003, in Bristol, England. Educator and author. Gifford was a longtime professor of comparative literature and an authority on Russian literature, in particular. A graduate of Christ Church, Oxford, he earned a bachelor's degree there in 1936. During the Spanish Civil War, he worked at a refugee camp for two years, and then taught at Eton for a semester. With the onset of World War II he fought with the Royal Armoured Corps in Germany and the Middle East, achieving the rank of captain. It was during these experiences abroad that Gifford acquired extensive knowledge of other languages, including Spanish, modern Greek, Italian, and Russian. After the war, he completed his master's degree at Christ Church in 1946, joining the faculty at the University of Bristol that year as an assistant lecturer. He remained at Bristol throughout his academic career, becoming a full professor of modern English literature in 1963 and Winter-Stroke professor of English from 1967 to 1975; in 1976 he was made professor of English and comparative literature, though he retired just six months into this position. It was Gifford who established programs in Italian and Russian at Bristol, helping to gain respectability for these national literatures in Britain. He was, furthermore, the author of several important studies, including The Novel in Russia: From Pushkin to Pasternak (1965), Comparative Literature (1969), and Tolstoy (1982), and was the general editor of the "Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature" series from 1980 to 1984.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Daily Telegraph (London, England), December 18, 2003.

Guardian (London, England), December 6, 2003, p. 29.

Times (London, England), December 12, 2003.