Obituaries : M. Abbott Van Nostrand; President Emeritus of Play Publisher

M. Abbott Van Nostrand, 83, president emeritus of Samuel French, the world’s oldest and largest play publisher and licensing agency. During his 40 years as president of French, Walter H. Baker Co. and Samuel French, Van Nostrand published every prominent 20th Century playwright, including 26 Pulitzer Prize winners and 14 Nobel Prize winners. The list includes Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, David Mamet, William Saroyan, James Thurber and Kurt Vonnegut. On Sept. 27 in New York.