From the Editors

From the Editors Transitions S everal waves of change make themselves felt in this issue of Poe Studies. The first is an editorial change of the bittersweet kind: Alexander Hammond retired from Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism with the publication of our double-volume festschrift (2006–2007) in honor of founder G. R. Thompson. Professor Hammond’s contribution to this and other journals has been deep: following a term as assistant editor at Nineteenth-Century Fiction (UCLA) from 1971 to 1975, he took on the duties of coeditor for Poe Studies (the pre-1985 title) and worked in partnership with Thompson from 1976 to 1979; he served as editor for the journal from 1980 to 2003 and, finally, as coeditor with Jana Argersinger beginning in 2003; and along the way, in summer 1977 and spring 1984, he coedited ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance with Robert C. McLean. It is characteristic of Professor Hammond that he will brook no lengthy encomiums, but it must be said that the culture and tone of this journal have long reflected his commitment, in equal measure (and as far as they are separable), to the human side of scholarly relation and the demands of intellectual integrity. The scholars who have benefited from his willingness to spend hours poring over sources and writing generously detailed letters of advice, if gathered together, would make a crowd much larger than he is likely to credit. Professor Hammond claims the freedoms of retirement (he officially leaves the Department of English at Washington State University in spring 2009) but has agreed to consult for us from time to time, a boon that will help keep the standards of Poe Studies high. And Poe scholarship at large will benefit from his projected labors in the Palmer C. Holt Collection of Poeannotated source texts, held in Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections at Washington State University Libraries. A welcome arrival balances this departure: we announce, with pleasure and anticipation, that Scott Peeples (College of Charleston) has agreed to coedit Poe Studies with Ms. Argersinger, and in fact the present volume is the first fruit of this new collaboration. Professor Peeples brings to the journal a distinguished record of contribution to Poe studies and to the broader field of nineteenth-century American literature: He is the author of Edgar Allan Poe Revisited (1988) and The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe (2004), as well as C
2008 Washington State University P O E S T U D I E S , VOL. 41, 2008 3 F R O M T H E E D I T O R S articles on Poe-related and other topics in such publications as ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, Arizona Quarterly, Biography, Leviathan, and The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. From 2004 to 2007, he ably filled the office of president for the Poe Studies Association, and he helped organize PSA-sponsored conferences in Baltimore (2002) and Oxford (2006). Professor Peeples, we are confident, will carry on the tradition of warm-spirited and excellence-seeking enterprise that makes the office of Poe Studies a fine place to work. The second change is an administrative one of the invigorating kind: Volume 41 is the first to appear under the auspices of our new publisher, Wiley-Blackwell—both in print and electronically, as part of the online American Literature Collection of journals—a partnership from which we expect a host of benefits for both the journal’s editors and its readers. And the third is a change of title. While few readers over the years have referred to the journal as Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism, the second half of the title suggested a central concern with a particular literary movement that, although essential to a thorough understanding of Poe, represented only one perspective. And if the title implied an interest in other “dark romantics,” that wider interest wasn’t often reflected in the journal’s pages. We have decided, then, to remove Dark Romanticism and place more emphasis on the established subtitle: History, Theory, Interpretation. In doing so we hope to broaden the range of Poe Studies to include, for instance, essays focused on historical questions that a...