Editor's Comment

Editor's Comment I am delighted to introduce Mary Loeffelholz to our readers as the new Associate Editor of Studies in American Fiction. Professor Loeffelholz came to Northeastern University after a Ph.D. from Yale and several years of teaching at the University of Illinois. Her special interests are fiction by American women writers, Romanticism, and literature and politics in the nineteenth century. She will assume full responsibility for the journal in September of 1991, when I move to the University of Georgia for the year as the first J. O. Eidson Distinguished Professor of American Literature. I am especially pleased to leave the journal in the hands of someone I have come to admire and respect over the last several years, and I wish her every success with her new duties. The journal has also had the good fortune this year to have the services of Carol Aeree as our Graduate Assistant. She has proven to be invaluable to the office not only in handling advertising but in proofreading and production as well. Her outstanding academic record and dedicated professionalism bode well for her career as a scholar and teacher in our profession. This year also saw the retirement of Professor Paul C. Wermuth, who was Head of the Department of English when the journal was founded in 1972. He was an unwavering supporter of the initial proposal for the journal and a steadfast member of the Editorial Board for almost twenty years, and we wish him happiness and fulfillment in his retirement. The second annual conference of the American Literature Association will be held at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C, May 24-26, 1991 (Friday, Saturday , and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend). Preregistration conference fees will be $30 (with a special rate of $10 for independent scholars, retired individuals, and students). The hotel is offering a conference rate of $60 a night (single or double). To register or obtain housing information, write to Professor Alfred Bendixen, English Dept., California State University L.A., Los Angeles, CA 90046. The American Literature Association is a coalition of societies devoted to the study of American authors. It is committed to exploring the richness and diversity of American writing and welcomes all forms of humanistic scholarship. It publishes a newsletter which provides information on its annual conference, its other activities, and the societies of which it is composed. To subscribe to the newsletter, send a check for $5 made out to the American Literature Association to Professor Bendixen. J.N. ...