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  • Victorian Periodicals Review:29:4 (Winter 1996) to 37:3 (Fall 2004)
  • William H. Scheuerle (bio)

In 1995, Barbara Quinn Schmidt, a former editor of Victorian Periodicals Review (VPR) and then President of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, asked me whether I would consider assuming the editorship of VPR. Richard Fulton, the then present editor, had announced in the summer 1995 issue of VPR "his plans to resign as soon as a new editor [could] be named." After listing twelve duties of the editor, he continued by stating that "the burden of editing this journal is not as onerous as some . . . would like to think . . . .[I]t isn't an overwhelming job"(182). After being named the new editor by the RSVP Board of Directors, and after meeting with Dick, who graciously flew to Florida to brief me on the duties, and after getting my editorial feet wet with my first issue, which was volume 29, number 4 (Winter 1996) and which was mainly an already planned Wellesley Index update, I silently responded to Dick's comments with a mild "balderdash."

During the time of the editorial transition, VPR was being published by the University Press of Colorado. But almost immediately after the publication of that winter 1996 issue, Dick and I received a letter from the University Press of Colorado stating that with that issue it was discontinuing the printing of VPR along with several other journals. Thus, my first "onerous" task was to find another publisher, and my second "overwhelming" one was to answer a multitude of letters from individual subscribers, libraries, and jobbers during that extended search period as to the status of VPR: had it ceased publication? where is my copy of the journal? how do I get a refund? did you lose my address? At least I was encouraged to know that there was a wide interest in the journal.

During the approximately six-month search for a new publisher, I time with graphic designers discussing a new face for the journal. The question of a change of cover design had been raised at the [End Page 40]


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Cover design inherited by Bill Scheuerle, VPR 29:3 (Fall 1996)

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September 1996 RSVP meeting, and the time seemed ripe since VPR would be having a new publisher. In November 1996 I sent three designs to an appointed committee of four RSVP members (Barbara Quinn Schmidt, Linda Hughes, Laurel Brake, and Merrill Distad). Thus, for the next issue, 30:1, spring 1997, (which, unfortunately, was months late because of the change of publishers), I was pleased to announce the effective changes (fig. 1):

Victorian Periodicals Review is celebrating a birthday and commencing a new relationship. With this issue, Victorian Periodicals Review is starting its 30th year of publication, and the Officers of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals are proud to announce that the University of Toronto Press has assumed the publication and management of the journal . . . .To help celebrate this birthday and this new relationship, VPR has given itself a new face, a slightly re-designed cover that the Officers hope will please you (vii).

The lead article in this celebratory issue was an up-to-date history of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals and of VPR by Barbara Quinn Schmidt that followed a longer account that the former editor Merrill Distad had published in 1984, when Barbara had assumed the editorship of the journal. Thus with a new publisher and a new design and a new editor, the journal had moved to a new editorial office at the Department of English, University of South Florida. Shirley Sackman, Clark College, became the new book review editor, and Solveig Robinson became bibliographer. USF graduate students became associate editors: Deborah Silverman (Winter 1996), Bonita Berg-Reece (Spring 1997-Fall 1999), Robin Taylor Rogers (Winter 1999-Fall 2004), and the University of South Florida Research Foundation became the financial depository for local funding. Thus, for the next eight years VPR had a home at USF.

Besides changing the cover design of VPR, I initiated some minor changes in the format of the journal. In most issues I...

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