Dear List,

As I wrote to Nancy Schuman, "You don’t need us to tell you he was a wonderful, sweet man, but we certainly felt privileged to discover that for ourselves.”

Sam was a fine Nabokovian. His 1979 secondary bibliography has been an invaluable resource ever since. For decades Sam went into university administration, which he apparently made not “the Dark Side” but the light side. That meant he didn’t publish as much as he would have otherwise on Nabokov—had he compiled decennial updates of his bibliography, they would would have been a godsend.  Since retiring from administration he has been a regularly delightful presence at Nabokov conferences, including the one here in Auckland. Sad that he was not able to carry through with his plans for his own Nabokov conference, but  I’m glad he was able to publish his book on Nabokov and Shakespeare before he was too sick to celebrate its publication.

We’ll miss his warmth, kindness, and gentle acumen.

Brian Boyd