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Matthew J. Bruccoli: 76, Scholar, Dies; Academia’s Fitzgerald Record Keeper

Matthew J. Bruccoli, whose biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald and outpouring of scholarly essays and critical editions made him the dean of Fitzgerald studies in the United States, died at his home in Columbia, S.C., on Wednesday. He was 76.

The cause was a glioma, a tumor of the brainstem, said his wife, Arlyn.

Mr. Bruccoli (pronounced BROOK-uhly), who taught at the University of South Carolina for nearly 40 years, wrote more than 50 books on Fitzgerald or Hemingway, notably “Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald,” published in 1981. He and his wife donated 3,000 books and periodical publications by and about Fitzgerald to the university.

Matthew Joseph Bruccoli was born in the Bronx, where his father ran a drugstore and where he attended the Bronx High School of Science. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Yale University in 1953 and briefly attended graduate school at Cornell University before transferring to the University of Virginia, where he received a master’s degree and a doctorate.

“It took me seven years because I kept taking time off to write books,” he told The New York Post in 1978.
Read entire article at NYT