Vancouver bookseller, publisher and polemicist Bill Hoffer died of cancer in Victoria on September 28, 1997 at the age of 53. Prairie-born-and-raised, Bill Hoffer was a graduate student at SFU's volatile PSA Department before turning to bookselling in the late 1960s. In the ensuing 20-plus years, he operated bookshops at a variety of locations in Vancouver, most notably at 4529 West 10th Ave (as Falstaff Books), #104 - 570 Granville, and finally in Gastown at 58 and 60 Powell. Bill Hoffer built a huge collection of Canadian literature, by far the largest stock in Canada, which was in later years relegated to a warehouse. He was acknowledged in the international antiquarian booktrade as the leading authority on Canadian literature.

Bill had a love/hate relationship with Canadian literature and was a constant campaigner against government subsidy for the arts, specifically the Canada Council. In 1987, with The Fraser Institute he co-published John Metcalf's essay, Freedom From Culture. In 1991, Bill dismantled his bookshop and publishing enterprise and relocated to Moscow, a move that understandably surprised many. He married and established a life in his adopted country which he said, as soon as he arrived, felt like home. After mastering the Russian language and the intricacies of the Russian book trade and bureaucracy, Bill was attending auctions and finding significant books which were making their way into major North American research libraries. This phase of his life ended in August with the discovery of lung cancer and his return to Canada for treatment -- by Paul Whitney, BC BookWorld, 1997