Editor's Note

This issue of Late Imperial China marks the retirement of Editor James Lee, Associate Editor Mi Chu Wiens, and Editorial Assistant Barbara Calli. Over the course of the past fifteen years, James and his team (including at times Charlotte Furth and Joshua Fogel) have transformed this journal from a beloved but decidedly informal organ for a few specialists, produced and circulated out of the editors' living rooms and bearing the quaint Chinese title Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i, into the glossy artifact you have before you, rigorously (we hope) refereed and edited, and published by a major university press.

As a longtime reader no less than as a co-worker, I feel I can represent the journal's growing number of subscribers in expressing thanks to James, Mi, and Barbara for their years of labor in helping bring new scholarship to the attention of our field, and in the process giving that field a strong collective identity. Speaking for the new editorial team, I can only pledge to try our best to continue the tradition of excellence which our predecessors have established.

William T. Rowe

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