W. M. Spackman; Scholar Won Fame Writing Romance Fiction

W. M. Spackman, a literary stylist who in his middle years turned to the romance novel, has died in Princeton, N.J.

His daughter, Harriet Newell of Carmel, Calif., told the New York Times that her father died at his home last Friday from complications of prostate cancer. He was 85 and had recently finished his final novel, “As I Sauntered Out, on Mid-Century Morning.”

Educated at Princeton and Oxford universities, William Mode Spackman was a copy writer, public relations executive and teacher of classics at New York University and the University of Colorado before writing his first novel, “Heyday,” in 1953.

Such works as “A Little Decorum for Once,” “An Armful of Warm Girl” and “A Presence of Secrets” gained attention for wide-ranging, refined characters who dealt with the male-female predicament with humor and understanding.

He said his “only real literary interest is the high-style novel” and criticized the novels of “ideas” for failing to bring their subjects to life.

His phrasing, however, often put him at odds with critics such as the Los Angeles Times’ Carolyn See, who wrote in 1985 that Spackman “will never let any of us forget” that he “has a far better education than any of his readers. . . .”

In 1984 he was honored by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for “work that merits recognition for the quality of its prose style.”

His other works include “On the Decay of Humanism,” a collection of essays.