G. Robert Stange, 87, a summer resident of Chilmark since the early 1960s and an authority on the poetry and literature of 19th century Britain, died Feb. 9 on Sanibel Island, Fla.

Bob Stange's relationship with the Vineyard began one summer in the 1950s, when he came to visit professor Walter Houghton and his wife Esther at their house overlooking Menemsha Pond. Houghton had enlisted the younger scholar to collaborate on an anthology of Victorian poetry, the subsequently widely used Victorian Poetry and Poetics.

It was 1964 before Bob would return to the Vineyard. That summer he and his wife, Alida, made the long car trip from Minneapolis to summer in Chilmark, the start of a lifetime connection.

Bob Stange took obvious pride in being an intellectual, and his love of literature, of art and of learning was infectious. He took great pleasure in sailing his Menemsha 24, the Indra, across Vineyard Sound for picnics at Tarpaulin Cove, and in creating an impressive perennial garden despite the ravages of deer, wind and sandy soil.

He was a professor of English literature at Tufts University from 1967 to 1985, and chaired the English department there for five years. In addition to the Victorian poetry anthology, his publications included Matthew Arnold: The Poet as Humanist, and numerous articles on British literature and culture.

A native of Chicago, he graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1941. At Harvard he was awarded the prestigious Bowdoin Essay Prize, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. After service in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he worked as an editor for Little, Brown and Co. before returning to Harvard to earn a doctorate in history and literature.

Stange joined the faculty of Bennington College in 1949. From 1952 to 1967, he taught in the English department at the University of Minnesota. He was an advisory editor to several scholarly journals, the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, and served as a consultant for the Fulbright committee and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Survivors include his wife, Alida; two daughters, Maren of Brooklyn, N.Y. and Margit of Berkeley, Calif. and Aquinnah; a son, Eric, of Arlington and Aquinnah; and three grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Hospice of Martha's Vineyard, P.O. Box 2549, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557.