The Editor’s Fence

THE EDITOR'S FENCE 1. ELT Conference: Chicago. 1963: Conference 2: English Literature In Transition: Poetry (1880-1900) wi11 meet In Chicago, as follows: Place: Palmer House Date: Friday, 27 Dec 1963 Room: Room 8 Time: 8:45-10:00 a. m. The topic of discussion is the poetry of the last two decades of the nineteenth century. This topic is essentially an extension of last year's Conference, which concerned the aesthetic-decadent movement between 1880 and 1900. This year we might deal less with definitions of such relatively broad terms as aesthetic!sm and decadence and more with the quality and the importance of the poetry produced between 1880 and about 1900. Such a discussion might touch on the unique characteristics of the poetry, its success as poetry, and its impact on the poets who followed. The springboard for some of our discussion might be two papers published in this number: John A. Lester's "The Consolations of Ecstasy" and John Munro's "Arthur Sytnons as Poet: Theory and Practice." Professor Lester's paper outlines some of the ways in which the sensibility of the times was expressed in literature; Professor Munro's paper makes some challenging statements about the quality and importance of one writer's poetry. All those wishing to attend the Conference should write the Co-Discussion Leaders, Helmut E. Gerber and Edward S. Lauterbach, Department of English, Purdue University, W. Lafayette, Indiana. Attendance is limited by NLA rules to about 35 persons. 2. ELT Policy on Content: We have been trying to provide variety while at the same time encouraging scholars to submit articles for which scholarly outlets are limited. By this we mean articles, bibliographies, and edited manuscript material too long for most other journals; work on minor authors for which other journals can seem to find no space; work on authors whose productions were not wholly literary in the narrow sense, as Lytton Strachey, Havelock Ellis, Samuel Butler, W. H. Hudson, A. R. Orage, Max Beerbohm, Aubrey Beardsley, and many others. We have, thus, published an article and a bibliography of criticism on Hubert Crackanthorpe, we are hoping to publish work on Richard Whiteing, we have had a bibliographical article on Isaac Rosenberg and will have one next year on Wilfred Owen; we have given over three numbers, a total of over 200 pages, to a bibliography of criticism on Kipling, and we expect to add, next year, a supplement probably occupying two numbers; we have scheduled for next year a previously unpublished play by H. G. Wells, edited with an Introduction by Michael Timko, which will occupy over 100 pages. In addition, we continue to list abstracts of criticism on over 40 authors. The uniqueness of ELT, then, at least in part, is due to our being able to publish unusually long projects and pieces on subjects which would hardly increase the circulation of most journals whose fare is primarily structural and thematic analyses of works frequently taught on the college level. This does not mean that we ignore major authors or that we are unsympathetic to explicatory articles. It does mean that we try to provide an outlet for the kind of material which few other journals seem to publish. We have published articles and notes on major authors and will continue to do so. But we shall always vi continue to provide space for good articles and bibliographies on minor authors. We can do what we do because ELT is relatively inexpensive to produce, because our small staff of 3 or k, with the aid of a spare-time departmental secretary, perform all the labor of editing, some of the research and writing, stenciling, proofreading, mimeographing, collating, stapling, stuffing, stamping, mailing, and billing. We are not excessively piagued by space problems, deadlines, or regularity of publication. Individual numbers can vary from 30 to preferably no more than 75 pages, although for special projects we can go to about 100 pages; individual volumes can consist of from 2 to 5 numbers. Our chief limitation is time and energy. The editors do teach and serve on committees and engage in their own researches. Our graduate assistant does take courses and writes...