Albert Joseph Guerard; Stanford Professor, Author

Albert Joseph Guerard, 86, a Stanford University English professor who wrote nine novels, six books of criticism and a memoir. He wrote his first novel, “The Past Must Alter,” when he was 20, and his last, “Gabrielle,” as he approached his 80s. His memoir, “The Touch of Time: Myth, Memory and the Self,” was published when he was was 66. Critics over the years praised Guerard’s sound, literate prose but often noted that his characterization was weak. A Times review of his 1950 novel “Journey Into Night” said Guerard’s “technical ability is great when it comes to the novel of ideas.” He joined the Stanford faculty in 1961 and soon launched the university’s first freshman seminar program, which ran for 13 years. Among Guerard’s students was the best-selling novelist John Updike. Guerard’s interest in the literary schools of modernism and postmodernism motivated him to develop Stanford’s current interdisciplinary doctoral program in modern thought and literature. Born in Houston, Guerard earned his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees at Stanford and his master’s at Harvard. He taught at Amherst College and then, from 1938 to 1961, at Harvard, with time out to serve in the Army during World War II. On Nov. 9 in Palo Alto of emphysema.