Incipitque Semper

We are happy to welcome Stephanos Geroulanos who joined MLN in October as the Editorial Assistant for the Comparative Literature issue. His energy, acumen, and judgment have been invaluable. We would also like to thank Bill Scott and Chris Powers, whose generous offers of assistance during a period of interregnum have been deeply appreciated.

Once again, we are also indebted to Myrta Byrum at the Johns Hopkins Press for helping to see this issue through production with fidelity, patience, and tact. Finally thanks are also due to our perforce anonymous reviewers for their generous guidance in assessing contributions.

Benchmarks

The annual volume of Emblematica: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Emblem Studies, under the editorship of Peter Daly and his colleagues, celebrates its twelfth year with a handsome double number. The first part, under the guest editorship of Alison Adams, is devoted to papers from the 26th annual conference of The Association of Art Historians (convened in Edinburgh); the organizing topic is "Body and Soul: Exploring Objects, Making Myths." The second part contains five substantial articles, a bibliography of secondary literature on the English emblem published since the 1990 bibliography of Daly and Silcox; there are also sections dedicated to reviews, research reports, notes, queries, and notices. This is a large volume, generously illustrated.

Arnold Stein [1915-2002]

As this issue goes to press, we mourn the death of Arnold Stein, our former colleague, editor of our sister publication ELH, and a generous friend of this journal. Honored by his fellow scholars of the 17th century, he was cherished by his friends for his taste in wine as well as literature, for his sly levity as well as his gravitas. A poet himself, he counted among his devoted friends Theodore Roethke and Robert Penn Warren. Always magnanimous in his response to requests from MLN to evaluate manuscripts, his reader's reports were marked by the same judgment, wit, and carefully crafted prose that distinguished his own publications.