General Editor's Introduction

"What would Pascale do?" Pascale Aebischer is an effective lodestar for any Shakespeare scholar or journal editor, and therefore a doubly great one for the new General Editor of Shakespeare Bulletin. She's been an inspiring leader in our field, and I'm hoping we'll see even more of her discipline-defining work out there now that her time at the helm of SB has drawn to a close.

Throughout the editorial process that resulted in this, my first issue as General Editor, I have had many occasions not only to wonder in a rhetorical way what Pascale would do but also to seek her actual advice. Since Pascale is a generous scholar and a good friend, I shouldn't be surprised that she set me up to succeed: it's what she does. She's left the journal in excellent shape, running with Swiss precision in every way – though I suspect that her amazingly efficient editorial assistant, Harry McCarthy, might deserve more than a little of the credit for that.

The guest editors of this issue, Sarah Dustagheer and Harry Newman, have made my job even easier by having a clear vision from the outset, gathering a strong group of contributors, and hitting every single deadline. They're a dream to work with, in case you were wondering about collaborating with them on some future project of your own.

Sarah is not only the co-editor of this issue, but also the new Book Review editor, a role I enjoyed over the past five years. I'm very pleased that she's agreed to join SB, along with Peter Kirwan, our incoming Performance Review editor, taking over from Roberta Barker, Paul Prescott, and latterly Harry McCarthy. A journal is only as good as its editorial team, and I'm delighted that I was able to convince two such outstanding scholars to join SB. I've also been impressed by the generosity that I've had occasion to witness from our editorial board members and external peer reviewers. The people who provide our authors with the benefit of their insightful (sometimes incisive) and useful feedback on articles, special issue proposals, and even entire special issues must necessarily remain nameless, but their work is essential and much appreciated.

My immediate plans for the journal follow on from Pascale's innovations. You won't notice any drastic changes, I hope, especially because I have my own amazingly efficient assistant, Anne Sophie Voyer, who will ensure that Harry and Pascale's legacy is not besmirched. We'll still be focusing on the best new scholarship about early modern drama in performance, which we'll publish in a combination of themed special issues and open issues. We'll still be seeking out interesting performance reviews, hoping to capture not only impressions of productions at the usual venues but also perspectives and productions that may be unusual: one-off, off-beat, or far-flung. We'll still review some of the most exciting books published in our field, though never, alas, all of them. I wish we could. Our field is thriving and there is so much good work that deserves our notice. It's a privilege and a pleasure to help shape that field as the General Editor of SB.