Stephen Fender obituary

My friend Stephen Fender, who has died aged 89, was instrumental in establishing American studies in three UK academic institutions: Edinburgh University, University College London and the University of Sussex. Creative restlessness marked his life and found published form in the books Plotting the Golden West (1981), exploring writing about the California gold rush, and Sea Changes (1992), which looked at how an American identity was forged by immigrants. Steve was born in San Francisco, the first of three sons of Frederick Fender, a neurosurgeon, and his wife, Ruth (nee Henderson), an artist. Frederick dispatched the 14-year-old Steve to a boarding school, Hotchkiss, in Connecticut. In New England he became aware of the nation's pioneer writers – and in later life, he would produce a magisterial edition of Thoreau's Walden (2008). After Hotchkiss, Steve went to Stanford University where, majoring in literature, he embraced the anti-romantic doctrine of the critic Yvor Winters, one of his lecturers. In American style he worked his way through college by playing string bass in a gay jazz club bar. He laboured with Okies in the summer fields. In his last year he worked during vacations as a copy boy on the San Francisco Chronicle. Graduating in 1958, he took off to 'see Europe'. A shipboard friendship led to an encounter with the Rev Moelwyn Merchant, head of the English department at Cardiff University. Steve mentioned his intention to research the 17th-century Puritan cleric and metaphysical poet Edward Taylor. 'Do an MA by thesis with me,' said Merchant. 'Annual fee £17.' It went well. At Cardiff Steve met Buffy (Elizabeth) Davies, a medical student, whom he married in 1964. Steve upped his MA thesis to doctoral level with Frank Kermode at Manchester University, and his PhD, Edward Taylor and the Sources of American Puritan Wit, was completed in 1962. Washington, via the United States Information Agency, was then investing in the cultivation of American studies in British universities, aiming to oppose what it saw as a worrying neo-Marxism among Europe's young. This helped Steve win an appointment as a lecturer in the English department at Edinburgh, specialising in US literature. Steve and Buffy took up residence at a fine Georgian New Town flat. In 1969 Kermode, by then at UCL and given a free hand to remodel its English department, headhunted Steve as senior lecturer. Steve moved on in 1985 to be professor of American studies at Sussex University, whose fluid academic structures suited him. In term time he commuted from London to Brighton. The family spent summers in their cottage in Tuscany. After retirement in 2002 he continued to write. His most recent publication – the Cambridge University Press edition of Henry James's The Spoils of Poynton – came out shortly after his death. Buffy died in 2010. Steve is survived by his partner, Jen Wall; the four children from his marriage, Tom, Matthew, Owen and Anna; and nine grandchildren.