Russell P. Sebold *53

Russell Sebold, the retired Edwin R. Williams Professor in the department of Romance languages at the University of Pennsylvania, died April 7, 2014, of complications from a stroke. He was 86.

After graduating from Indiana University in 1949, Sebold earned a Ph.D. in modern languages and literature from Princeton in 1953. He then taught at Duke, Wisconsin, and Maryland before teaching Spanish at Penn from 1968 until he retired in 1998.

Sebold was an internationally recognized scholar of 18th- and 19th-century Hispanic studies. At Penn, he chaired the Romance languages department and was general editor of the Hispanic Review. He was the author of 39 books of literary criticism and more than 100 scholarly articles.

The Cervantes Virtual Library recognized him as one of the most influential Hispanicists in history and as a most prominent scholar of 18th-century Spain. Sebold received an honorary doctorate from the University of Alicante, and the International Nebrija Prize for Criticism and History from the University of Salamanca.

Sebold is survived by his wife, Jane, and two daughters.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.