Foreword

This 46th annual volume in a series stretching back to AmLS 1963, published in 1965, is also the 12th volume I have edited. I was about to congratulate myself on my stamina, but then reality and admiration set in. Both James L. Woodress, who initiated this survey of scholarship in the field, and the late J. Albert Robbins, who became Woodress's coeditor, edited 12 volumes. (Gary Scharnhorst, my coeditor, has now edited 8 volumes. The other 2 of the 46, to complete the inventory, were prepared by the late Warren French and the late Louis Owens.) Several chapter contributors, most notably William J. Scheick and Jerome Klinkowitz, have been involved for some three decades. So I will simply note my anniversary in my own calendar.

First-time users of this series should be aware that our contributors, selected for their expertise in the areas they address in their chapters, are charged to review items they identify as significant to scholarly work in the field; they have no obligation to discuss everything appearing in print, and they are not limited to those items recorded in the MLA Bibliography, which because of the sheer mass of material often needs several years to cover a specific publication year comprehensively. The citation system employed in AmLS is consistent with that of the MLA, but with some further compression: books frequently discussed are given short titles, periodicals are identified by their MLA-assigned abbreviations, and publishers are given truncated names—full identification in all these categories is provided in "Key to Abbreviations" immediately following this foreword.

The roster of contributors changes considerably both this year and next. New to the present volume are Robert Thacker (the Cather portion of "Wharton and Cather"); Matthew Hofer (the T. S. Eliot portion in "Pound and Eliot"), returning after only a year's break from preparing [Begin Page vii] "Poetry: 1900 to the 1940s"; Michael L. Burduck ("Early-19th-Century Literature"); Sanford E. Marovitz ("Fiction: 1900 to the 1930s"); Barry Ahearn ("Poetry: 1900 to the 1940s"); Jonathan Chambers (coauthoring "Drama" with Dorothy Chansky); Gary Lee Stonum ("Themes, Topics, Criticism"); Daniela Ciani Forza ("Italian Contributions"); Enikő Bollobás and Grażyna Zygadło (coauthoring "Central European Contributions"); and Thomas Aervold Bjerre and Jopi Nyman (coauthoring "Nordic Contributions," an expansion of "Scandinavian Contributions"). Keiko Beppu returns to provide the biennial survey "Japanese Contributions." New contributors for 2009 will include William Rossi, taking over "Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Transcendentalism" from David M. Robinson; Chris Sten, replacing Dennis Berthold in "Melville"; Tyler Hoffman, replacing Paul Crumbley in the Emily Dickinson portion of "Whitman and Dickinson"; Michael Kiskis, returning after several years to take over "Mark Twain" from Alan Gribben; Joseph Fruscione, replacing Suzanne del Gizzo in "Fitzgerald and Hemingway"; Markus Heide, stepping in for Thomas Austenfeld in "German Contributions"; and Jenny Bonnevier, succeeding Liz Kella as the Swedish representative in "Nordic Contributions." Antonio C. Márquez will return to contribute the biennial "Spanish Contributions" chapter, and Françoise Clary will provide two years' coverage in "French Contributions" to remedy the absence of that section this year. Sincere thanks to arriving, departing, and continuing participants for their generous effort and their equanimity.

Professor Scharnhorst and I acknowledge the support of the University of New Mexico and Indiana University in providing us with vital resources, especially library and information services, and of the staff of MLA Bibliographic Information Services in making available a prepublication version of the MLA Bibliography. I am especially grateful for the good sense and good eyes of Terri Fizer and Charles Brower and other members of the staff of Duke University Press in coordinating production of this volume. Authors and publishers can help us to assure the thoroughness of AmLS coverage by directing offprints and review copies to me at 1600 Morganton Rd. L3, Pinehurst, NC 28374. [Begin Page viii]