Obituary: Professor Philip Thody

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PHILIP THODY was for 28 years, until his retirement in 1993, Professor of French Literature at Leeds University and one of the foremost figures in French Studies in the United Kingdom.

Born, in 1928, and educated in Lincoln, he went up to King's College London to read French at the feet of several of the most distinguished scholars of the time. Armed with a First he went off to Paris for two years to write his thesis on "The Vogue of the American Novel in France since 1944"; this was followed by a year as lecteur at the Sorbonne.

Paris in the early Fifties, with its vibrant intellectual and literary activity and the political turmoil that was to lead to the return …