David Daiches, 92, Scholar of Literature and Whiskey, Dies
NY Times
David Daiches, who was an authority on Scotch whiskey as well as Scottish and English literature, died on July 15 in Edinburgh. He was 92.
A prolific literary biographer, historian, essayist, critic and poet, he was a former director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at Edinburgh University and a professor emeritus and former dean of the School of English Studies at the University of Sussex.
“Scotch Whisky: Its Past and Present,” his loving tribute and connoisseur’s guide to Scotland’s native distillate, is considered a standard reference work on the subject.
He was known in America for his books on writers, notably Robert Burns. He also wrote a Baedeker-style guide to his adopted hometown, “Edinburgh” (1978), and companion volumes like “Glasgow” (1977) and “Literary Landscapes of the British Isles: A Narrative Atlas” (1979), which he compiled with John Flowers.
