In Memoriam

December 16, 1915-January 29, 2005

A man of many facets and talents, A. Owen Aldridge will be remembered by some as a pioneer of colonial American literary studies, by others for his explorations in East-West literary relations, and by still others as a former president of the American Comparative Literature Association. For those of us associated with this journal however, he will forever be remembered as the founder of Comparative Literature Studies. Perhaps Owen's many interests were reflected in the different forms of his name appearing at the top of the CLS masthead from 1963 to 1986: Alfred Owen Aldridge; A. O. Aldridge; and A. Owen Aldridge, as though he had packed three scholarly lives into the space of one—which may indeed be true enough. His name has continued at the top since the first issue of 1987 (26.1), but as editor emeritus. This journal, then, and the Aldridge Prize for the best comparative essay by a graduate student that is associated with it, the fruits of his own efforts and genius, memorialize Owen better than our own poor power to do so. Turn the page, then, to find Owen's name again in the rubric for this year's Aldridge Prize essay, and indeed in all the learned prose of this issue. It is perhaps the best memorial an academic could hope for—the living word.