Martin C. Battestin ’52 *58

Marty died May 15, 2015, in Charlottesville, Va., at age 85.

He grew up in West Englewood, N.J., and entered Princeton from the Peddie School. After graduation with our class, Marty earned a Ph.D. in English literature from Princeton in 1958.

At Princeton, Marty played on the freshman baseball team and was a member of Cannon Club. He roomed with Jack Blessing, Hoby Kreitler, and Don Malehorn in Patton Hall during his junior and senior years.

He had a very successful and distinguished career as a professor of English at the University of Virginia, where he taught for 37 years and served as chairman of the English department. Marty was a serious and noted scholar of 18th-century English literature, as evidenced by his many writings on the subject, including a well-known biography of Henry Fielding for which Marty’s wife, Ruthe, a talented documentary researcher, provided expert assistance. Marty and Ruthe spent their summers for some 30 years in a flat they owned in London, which allowed Marty to access libraries and archives for materials and information needed to further his knowledge and interest in 18th-century English literature.

Marty had two children from a previous marriage, Catherine and David, who predeceased him. The class extends its sincere sympathy to Ruthe.