Foreword

Abstract

Foreword Andrew Hiscock Welcome to the 2022 volume of the Yearbook of English Studies published by the Modern Humanities Research Association. The first collection in this series was published in 1971 and the editor was Professor T. J. B. Spencer, who was at that time Director of the Shakespeare Institute and also Head of the Department of English Literature at the Institute. The 'Assistant Editor' was R. L. Smallwood. The introduction to the volume specified that this was to be a 'new annual publication […] devoted to the language and literature of the English-speaking world'. As the editors underlined, the Yearbook had been 'established because of the continuing rise in the amount of good work in English studies offered for publication in the Modern Language Review, and the similar increase in the number of books on the language and literature of the English-speaking countries sent for review.' In 1976 the Yearbook moved a short distance to the University of Warwick with the editorial duties now taken on by G. K. Hunter and C. J. Rawson. R. L. Smallwood remained as the Assistant Editor, but was replaced in the following year by Jenny Mezciems. At this point a new policy for the Yearbook was implemented. While it might operate as 'an additional outlet' for MLR submissions, 'a substantial portion of each Yearbook will from now on consist of specially commissioned articles on a broad topic […] in order to give each volume a greater centrality of interest and a wider readership.' And so with this new policy in place, the 1978 Yearbook (vol. 8) became an 'American Literature Special Number'. By 1984, Claude Rawson was sole editor with Jenny Mezciems continuing as Assistant Editor. In addition, by this time, the Yearbook had acquired an 'advisory panel' which included John Beer, Malcolm Bradbury, Philip Edwards, G. K. Hunter, Derek Pearsall, Pat Rogers, R. L. Smallwood, J. B. Trapp and Larzer Ziff. 1989 (vol. 19) saw the introduction of the first 'guest editor' for a Yearbook, J. R. (Dick) Watson of Durham University, who later became the Chairman of the MHRA. In 1990 Professor Andrew Gurr, Reading University, assumed the editorship of the Yearbook with Phillipa Hardman as the Assistant Editor, and in 2000 (vol. 30) he re-introduced the practice of inviting guest editors to the series. In the years which followed, Nicola Bradbury, also of Reading University, edited and commissioned a number of volumes of the Yearbook. During these years, Professor John Batchelor, Newcastle University, became English Editor for MLR, and took on the role of Series Editor for the Yearbook in the period 2006–11. He experimented with new patterns of publication for the Yearbook (two annual volumes), introduced new cover designs, and edited two Yearbook volumes himself in this period: one devoted to Victorian literature, and another entitled From Decadent to Modernist: and Other Essays. [End Page v] Apart from being a regular reader of the Yearbook in the course of my career, my first participation in its scholarly activities began when I was invited to become guest editor for the 2008 Yearbook devoted to Tudor Literature. After such a stimulating editorial project, it was an enormous pleasure to be appointed to succeed John Batchelor as series editor for the Yearbook of English Studies and as English editor for MLR in 2011. I remain enormously indebted to John for sharing his extensive knowledge of the very distinguished scholarly history of the MHRA's Yearbook of English Studies. In addition, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my sincere thanks to him, to Richard Correll (the Yearbook's editorial assistant) and to Gerard Lowe (the MHRA's Production Manager). In each case, their input and support has been invaluable. In recent years the Yearbook series has ranged in its research enquiries from early English drama to early modern prose fiction, Victorian world literatures, and to literature in the 1950s and 1960s. The present 2022 issue (vol. 52) returns attention to some of the earliest surviving literary documents in English Literature and to a culture negotiating urgent challenges of invasion, radically changing social priorities and the rigours of religious devotion. This collection, guest-edited by Clare Lees and Joshua...