Craig R. Thompson, retired Felix E. Shelling Professor of English Literature at the U. of Pennsylvania, died Oct. 4, 1996. He was 85.

Born in Carlisle, Pa., he earned his bachelor's at Dickinson College and his AM and PhD at Princeton.

Prior to joining the Penn faculty in 1968, he was professor of English and the library director at Haverford College, and professor of English at Lawrence U. He also taught at Cornell and Yale universities. He was an eminent authority on the life and work of Erasmus, and translated and edited The Colloquies of Erasmus (1965). He held fellowships and served as consultant at the Folger Shakespeare Library, and was several times a Guggenheim Fellow. Craig received an honorary Litt.D. from Dickinson in 1966. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society, the Cosmos Club, Phi Beta Kappa, the Nassau Club, the Franklin Inn, and Kappa Sigma.

For some time Craig was on the Alumni Council as the graduate school representative. He loved his years at Princeton; he continued to repeat the daily Latin prayers said at dinner in the graduate school every night at home for the rest of his life.

He is survived by his wife, Isabella, two sons, Allan and James '67, and two granddaughters.