SIMON KARLINSKY DIES

Simon Karlinsky, who wrote authoritative volumes on Gogol, Nabokov and Chekhov, has died at 84.

Karlinsky, who taught at UC Berkeley from 1964 to 1991, was the author, editor or translator of eight books, including "Anton Chekhov's Life and Thought: Selected Letters and Commentary" (1974), which Times critic Robert Kirsch said "may be the best single study of Chekhov ever done."