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  • Alan Raitt (1930–2006)
  • Mike Freeman

Alan Raitt, who died on 2 September 2006, a few weeks short of his seventy-sixth birthday, while on holiday at his home near Lisbon, was General Editor of French Studies from 1987 until his retirement in 1997. It was at his instigation that the journal moved to Oxford and to its present address, putting in place the editorial structure which still exists. For ten years the editorial team of Alan Raitt, Rhiannon Goldthorpe and Terence Cave (with the support of Janis Spurlock in the Taylorian office) saw to it that the high standards of the journal were maintained. His qualities as Editor were those he displayed over his career as teacher and researcher, namely attention to detail, immense erudition, support and encouragement to contributors, and unstinting hard work.

Alan went up to Magdalen College, Oxford, from King Edward's Grammar School, Morpeth, in 1948, and, with the exception of the years between 1955 and 1966 when he was a Fellow of Exeter College, and from 1956 until 1959 its sub-Rector, spent all his academic life in Magdalen. He progressed from being an undergraduate there to graduate student, Fellow by Examination, Fellow, Tutor and Senior Tutor, as well as serving the college as a distinguished Vice-President from 1983 to 1985. He had by then already been named in 1976 Special Lecturer in French Literature for the University and, three years later, University Reader. In 1992 he received the accolade of an ad hominem Chair.

As an undergraduate and graduate, he won many honours, among them Heath Harrison Travelling Scholarships in French and German in successive years, a First Class Honours degree in 1951, followed by a Zaharoff Travelling Scholarship. In 1957 he was awarded his D.Phil. for a thesis on 'Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and the Symbolist Movement', by which time he was already a lecturer and tutor. His genuine love of words (manifested in private in his daily crosswords) made language classes especially enlightening for students; a Renaissance man in many ways, Alan had a positively Rabelaisian relish for puns, bons mots, and jokes that depend on both erudition and a sense of humour. An excellent raconteur, especially when in good company and at his anecdotal, droll and expansive best, he was also an excellent listener, delighting to hear a new joke or hear again a favourite Tommy Cooper routine. Sometimes appearing austere and daunting to those who did not know him, he was in fact anything but. He liked the university and scholarly world and its gossip, but never spoke ill of colleagues and always tried to see the best in people. In his happy home life with Lia, whom he married in 1974, he could relax and entertain his guests with good food [End Page 133] (he was an excellent cook), good wine and good humour, often despite the pain and discomfort he suffered in the latter part of his life.

Alan Raitt's reputation as an international authority on nineteenth-century French literature is second to none. While on sabbatical from Oxford he taught at the Sorbonne and at the University of Georgia, and lectured at Vanderbilt University and the University of the South. He presented papers by invitation in the universities of Aberdeen, Barcelona, Birmingham, Exeter, Glasgow, Paris XII, Reading, Rennes, St Andrews, Tours, Trinity College Dublin and Warwick. He was a guest speaker at the Institut Français in London and the Maison de Balzac, the Centre Flaubert and the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris, and chaired sessions at conferences in Paris, Reims, Dublin and London. He also regularly contributed to seminars at Oxford's Maison Française, where he was among the first of the university's student residents when it opened over fifty years ago.

His legacy is a long and rich one. Forty years on, the clear, concise commentaries in his volume in the Life and Letters in France series retain all their freshness of expression and vision. His contributions to literary biography (Mérimée, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam), his critical editions, his numerous scholarly books and articles bear witness to a lively mind and an impressive range. He...

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