I too am sorry to hear of Phyllis Roth's death. She was a lively and engaging presence at the 1983 Cornell Nabokov conference, when as I recall she was already compiling her fine edited volume, Critical Essays on Vladimir Nabokov (1984), introduced by her comprehensive overview of early Anglophone academic scholarship on Nabokov. Alas, my memories of her have leached a great deal of detail since then, but I did wonder from time to time why she did not continue to contribute to Nabokov scholarship. Does anyone know?

On 3/04/2012, at 9:17 AM, NABOKV-L wrote:

Dear List,

I am very sorry to hear of Phyllis Roth's death. Phyllis chaired the panel at which I presented my first paper on Nabokov at the annual MLA conference--a study of his doubles in terms of his relationship with his brother Sergey, entitled "The Brothers Nabokov: Repetition and Revision"--in December 1986. I was a shy and anxious graduate student, but Phyllis took me under her wing, encouraging my interest in VN's doubles (which had been the subject of her dissertation) and inviting me to become an active member of the Vladimir Nabokov Society. I think her essay "The Man Behind the Mystification," in particular, remains one of the most important essays written on Nabokov.

Susan Elizabeth Sweeney

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