In Memoriam, William T. Stafford

Review of Terry Heller, The Turn of the Screw: Bewildered Vision. By Peter G. Beidler..............................................193 Review of Richard P. Gage, Order and Design: Henry James's Titled Short Story Sequences. By Kirk Cumutt..........................196 In Memoriam, William T. Stafford We report with great sadness the death on February 7 of William T. Stafford, a founding member of the editorial board of the Henry James Review and past president of the Henry James Society. Professor Stafford's distinguished career was marked by his sustained, energetic, and good-humored labors for the scholarly community, most notably, perhaps, in his editorial service, stretching across five decades, on Modern Fiction Studies. William Stafford was one of several colleagues at Purdue who founded MFS along with the late Maurice Beebe in 1955. When Beebe left Purdue for Temple in 1968 to launch the Journal of Modern Literature, William Stafford assumed leadership of the journal as chairman of the editorial board; he shared the editorship with Margaret Church from 1972 to 1982, and thereafter continued as the sole editor up to the end of a valiant struggle against throat and lung cancer. All students of modern fiction are indebted to William T. Stafford, and Jamesians in particular will remember his helpful source books on Daisy Miller (Daisy Miller: The Story, the Play, the Critics [1963]) and on The Portrait of a Lady (Perspectives on James's The Portrait of a Lady [1967]); his pioneering essay on James's 1903 tale "The Birthplace" ("James Examines Shakespeare: Notes on the Nature of Genius," PMLA 73 [1958]: 123-28), which was reprinted in a lively compilation of Stafford's essays, Books Speaking to Books: A Contextual Approach to American Fiction (1981); and his editorship of two treasure-laden Henry James volumes in the Library of America, Novels 1871-1889 (Watch and Ward, Roderick Hudson, The American, The Europeans, and Confidence) and Novels 1881-1886 (Washington Square, The Portrait of a Lady and The Bostonians ). Readers of the HJR may recall, furthermore, two thoroughly engaging and characteristically iconclastic essays on The Portrait of a Lady that Stafford published in these pages. In "The Portrait of a Lady: The Second Hundred Years" (HJR 2 [1981]: 91-100), he explored the "multiple tones" of the novel, emphasizing the "comedie" dimensions of Isabel Archer, the pungency of Osmond's wit—too little appreciated by other commentators, Stafford argued—and the attraction that he prophesied Henrietta Stackpole would develop for readers in the future. Then, in our special double number on The Portrait of a Lady, he contributed a memorable exploration of "The Enigma of Serena Merle" (HJR 7.2-3 [1986]: 117-23), arguing that "the undeniably manipulative and allegedly villainous Madame Merle is the most intricately rendered character" in the novel, that she is "its energizing force, its complication, and, in at least one central sense, its resolution," and that the greatness of the novel derives in part at least from Madame Merle, who is, "above all, enigmatically and believably human." (cont. on p. 198) (cont. from Contents, p. 2) No one privileged to know Stafford will forget the relish and enthusiasm with which he lived his life—qualities, indeed, that readers of his literary essays must also surely feel. We will miss him very much. William T. Stafford was sixty-six.—DMF Announcement CONRAD AND JAMES PRIZES. The Joseph Conrad Society (UK) and the Henry James Society invite submissions for the Don Holliday Prizes, a newly instituted series of three awards for essays on Conrad and James. Each year prizes will be offered in the following categories: 1) £ 200 for an essay on any aspect of the works of life of Joseph Conrad; 2) £ 200 for an essay on any aspect of the works or life of Henry James; 3) £ 300 for an essay comparing or contrasting the works or lives of Conrad and James. Applicants must not have held a full-time academic appointment for more than four years in the case of the separate James and Conrad prizes or for more than eight years in the case of the joint Conrad and James prize. Independent scholars and graduate students are encouraged to participate. Essays must be between 5...