In Memoriam

Edward Orth Doughtie, board member emeritus, passed away 26 March 2014. He was editor of SEL from 1973 to 1978, and from 1984 to 1989. He retired in 2001 as a full professor in the Rice Department of English and moved to Vermont, where he pursued his interests in music performance and creative writing, but continued as an active SEL board member until becoming emeritus in the summer of 2013. As editor, Ed led SEL through some difficult financial times and was instrumental, along with Bob Patten and Diana Hobby, in rescuing the journal from near insolvency. Ed remained through the years following his editorship a valuable resource as an evaluator of submissions on early modern subjects, especially those treating musical material. As Bob Patten writes, “Whatever job he did, he just did: no pyrotechnics. And it was unfailingly done well.” Ed was ever gracious and self-effacing, always shunning the limelight and among the first to praise others for their work. Every time he was sent a board report, he would write to offer his resignation, and praise those still in harness for how well he thought things were going. When we would protest his proffered departure from the masthead, he would agree to stay on one more year. No one embraced his retirement more eagerly or completely than Ed, which leaves us at SEL all the more grateful that he was willing to work in our behalf until less than a year before his passing.