The Robert Graves Review
 ONLINE JOURNAL OF THE ROBERT GRAVES SOCIETY
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Note: The text below is the result of an OCR extraction of a PDF file and has not been been yet edited. It will contain poorly formated paragraphs, typographical errors and omissions. In general, the older the issue of Gravesiana and Focus issues, the poorer the quality of the extract. This text has been supplied to allow a degree of text searchability for the pre-Robert Graves Review issues. For a better reading experience, we strongly recommend you read the PDF version. Please clickon icon below. The PDF will open on a separate tab.

Editorial

Editor's Introduction

Patrick Quinn

About two years ago, I was in Deia staying with William Graves. We were both still feeling the fatigue in our bones after both playing active roles in his father's centenary conferences. We spoke a great deal about keeping the momentum generated from the centenary conferences alive in to the new century and how important it was to establish a journal to replace the defunct Focus on Robert Graves and His Contemporaries.

William Graves' energy is infectious, and within a matter of days we were making plans for the new journal. Despite having told myself the last thing I wanted to do was begin the process of finding funding for a new journal and organising an editorial team, I found myself at night trying to think of names for a journal that was little more than a glint in William's eye. One day we sat in William's study looking at sample geology journals and magazines for ideas, and I knew I was hooked.

I returned to England and wrote to the Graves Society Vice-

Presidents, Robert Davis and Robert Bertholf and explained the ideas that had come from William. They were both supportive, and then I started thinking of people to bring in to the project. Amazingly, everyone I asked to assist me with the setting up of a new journal entitled Gravesiana (my working title) agreed to help. Most importantly, my colleague and faithful assistant with the Graves conferences, Ian Firla, agreed to take over the production side of the journal while Patrick McGuinness at Oxford and John Presley at the University of Michigan, Dearborn were (im)pressed into service as Associate Editors.

The next concern was finances, and Nene College generously agreed to support the journal for a year, and the College of Arts and Social Sciences through a launch party for the magazine in July of 1996. The support of my staff has been incredible, and the quality of the articles has been superb. The journal has gone from strength to strength since July, 1996. Financial support has continued in to the second year, and

St. John's College, Oxford, St. Andrews College, Glasgow, and the University of Buffalo have all support the journal financially, so as we enter the third year, we seem financially stable. The journal has appeared regularly, and as a result, the subscriptions have grown monthly.

With the journal looking established and secure, I find it a good time to leave it in the capable and competent hands of my Deputy Editor, Ian Firla. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting the journal on its feet and established, but the daily demands on preparing a literary journal for publication every six months has made me realise that I do not have adequate time for my other duties as President of the Graves Society and member of the Management Committee of the St. John's College Robert Graves Trust. In truth, when I took over the journal, I never felt I'd stay on as editor very long. Now, with Ian more conversant with the production of the journal than I am, it only seems logical that the editorship should go to him.

I'd like to take this last opportunity from the editor's chair to thank everyone who has been a part of the journal with me. Surely, I know better than anyone how much a journal is a co-operative effort, and how great it has been working with such a great group of people.

Thank you to Beryl, Michel, Caroline, Dunstan, Steve, John, Ian, Frank, Alice, Steve, Bob, Patrick and Joan.

Finally, I also realise how fortunate I've been to be associated with Robert Graves. I must have read over 100 articles on Graves in my capacity as editor of Focus and Gravesiana as well as in my capacity as editor of New Perspectives on Robert Graves (1998), and I have never been bored and almost always impressed by what I've read about him from countless perspectives. When one considers how much time one has invested in a particular writer, it is vital that one enjoys what he has written about. With Graves, can there be any doubt about being entertained? About being intrigued? About being satisfied? Ten years dedicated service to his literary reputation suggests the rhetorical answer.

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