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Died. Andre Maurois, 82, France's man of many letters; of complications following abdominal surgery; near Paris. No French author in this century proved so prolific—and few were rewarded with such honors. In a literary career spanning 50 years, Maurois produced over 120 works, including nine novels, three histories, countless articles, reviews, even advice to the lovelorn in women's magazines. But biography was his real forte. His infinitely researched studies of his nation's literary giants—Balzac, Voltaire, Proust, Hugo and Dumas—popularized a new genre in which he attempted to find threads of artistic order in each of his subject's lives, and thus draw unity from what he called "the shapeless mass" of events. A few critics scoffed at his "novelized biographies"; yet he illumined literature for many who would otherwise have missed its delights.
Died. Clement R. Attlee, 84, architect of the modern welfare state in Britain; of pneumonia; in London (see THE WORLD).
Died. Albert Hustin, 85, Belgian chemist who in 1914 discovered that citrate of sodium would prevent bottled blood from clotting, thereby opening the door to blood banks; in Brussels.
Died. Sir Norman Angell, 94, crusading pacifist and winner of the 1933 Nobel Peace Prize; of pneumonia; in Surrey, England. During half a century of writing punctuated by two world wars, Angell published more than 40 books decrying as illusory any "victory" in war and urging meaningful peace through collective security, most notably in Europe's Optical Illusion, a slim pamphlet first printed in 1909 and then, as it became the subject of a raging controversy, expanded into a book-length The Grand Illusion, which was eventually translated into 15 languages.