Don Gifford; Authority on James Joyce

Don Gifford, 81, cultural historian and authority on James Joyce. Gifford taught English and American studies at Williams College for 33 years, retiring in 1984. He was known to lovers of Joyce for his 1974 book, “Notes for Joyce: An Annotation of James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses,’ ” which he wrote with Robert J. Seidman. The work is still available in a revised edition titled “ ‘Ulysses’ Annotated,” published by the University of California Press. He also wrote a highly praised analysis of centuries of thought about the interplay of the environment and thought, titled “The Farther Shore: A Natural History of Perception,” published in 1990. In that book, Gifford considered such topics as how electric light has changed habits, noting that on “the farther shore of 1798,” balls and other evening events were scheduled during full moons, when “even on a cloudy night, coachmen could see their way to strange houses.” He also drew attention to the evolution of perceptions of space by contrasting the “killing zones” of historic and modern warfare, comparing the 1 1/2 square miles of Waterloo to the “edgeless timespace” of nuclear combat. Of the book, New York Times reviewer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote, “There is hardly a page of it that does not inform, provoke or make the reader see things in a different way.” On Monday at a hospital in North Adams, Mass.