The Eugene O'Neill Newsletter

IN THIS ISSUE:

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EDITOR'S FOREWORD

A May issue in July? A double issue comprising May and September? What's up? And why is the editor sporting that rhapsodic grin and kicking up his heels in glee? He hastens to explain, after expressing the hope that tempers aroused by the tardiness of the May issue will be calmed by the precociousness of its September half!

The Publications Committee of the Eugene O'Neill Society has, after lengthy deliberation, consummated the merger of the Society and the Newsletter. For the present, the Newsletter will serve as the semi-official voice of the Society, whose members will receive it automatically, the subscription cost being a part of their annual Society dues. And each issue will include a special Society Section; in the present issue, it comprises pp. 18-24. To answer the last of the questions above, it is the Society-Newsletter marriage that arouses the editorial grin and glee.

As chairman of the Society's Membership Committee, the editor hopes that non-member subscribers will choose to join the Society at subscription-renewal time or before. The Newsletter will continue to be available to non-members, but the non-member subscription rate for individuals will jump to $10 in 1981--a necessity as illustrations, which entail a more costly printing process, proliferate in response to readers' approbation. So, for just $10 more than the subscription rate, readers can reap all the additional benefits of Society membership as well. (Anyone interested in fuller membership information should write to the address cited at the top of p. 19.)

One might ask why lengthy deliberation was required to achieve such appropriate and propitious nuptials. An answer to that question will also answer the first two questions with which this foreword began. Society dues and memberships are based on the calendar year, whereas the thrice-annual Newsletter, since the first issue of Volume I appeared in May, has always had its unbalanced feet in two years--the big foot (two issues: May and September) in one year, and the little foot (one issue: January) in the next. To facilitate the consolidation of the Newsletter as an organ of the Society, and to make it too a calendar-year enterprise, it was the recommendation of the Publications Committee, with the assent of the editor, that there be two rather than three issues in Volume IV, one of them being a double issue. And it was my decision, considering its richness and length, that this issue constitute the "double bill." Hence its delayed publication, its date of May and September rather than the traditional May, and its designation as Volume IV, Nos. 1-2.

The second issue of Volume IV (Number 3) will appear in late October, and I vow to make it as substantial as the May-September issue, so that no current subscriber will feel aggrieved at receiving two rather than three copies of the Newsletter for his/her subscription payment. To solemnize that vow, I affix--well, lacking the wax for hundreds of seals, I affix my signature. I hope that you will share my pleasure at the merger and at the contents of what I consider one of the best issues yet.

The Eugene O'Neill Newsletter, Vol. IV, Nos. 1-2. Copyright (c) by the Eugene O'Neill Newsletter. Copyright © 2011 by Harley J. Hammerman. Editor: Frederick C. Wilkins. Assoc. Editor: Marshall Brooks. Subscriptions: $6/year for individuals in U.S. and Canada, $10/year for libraries and institutions and all overseas subscribers. Only one-year subscriptions are accepted. Members of the Eugene O'Neill Society receive subscriptions as part of their annual dues. Back issues are available @ $3 each. Address: The Eugene O'Neill Newsletter, Department of English, Suffolk University, Boston, MA 02114 U.S.A.