The last issue of Focus (Winter 1990-91) presented me with my first major problem since I have been editing the journal: a printing company that pays no heed to the numbering system of academic journals. As a result of a typesetting error, the last issue appeared as Volume 1, Number I()—the second issue to claim that designation. Since publication, several libraries throughout Europe and North America have written to question our system of numbering and to share with us their indexing problems. We apologize to them and to any other of our subscribers who have been inconvenienced by this mistake. For the record, the blue copy was Volume 1 , Number 10; the green copy is supposed to be Volume 1 , Number 1 1 ; and this present issue is Volume I , Number 12. Also, for some odd reason, I decided to place John W. Presley at the University of Victoria (where there is a large Graves collection) instead of at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. I've tried especially hard to get it right this time.

This issue of Focus is the result of a collaboration with my former colleague Richard Schumaker at the University of Maryland's European Division. The reason for moving Focus back to the comfortable confines of the University of Maryland is basically financial: Fayetteville State University, like many other state-funded universities, is currently under enormous pressure from the state government ofNorth Carolina to make cuts in iLS budget; Focus is one of those cuts. Dr. Schumaker kindly offered to help get this number of Focus to press through the auspices of the English Department of the University of Maryland European Divsion. Thus with the able support and encouragement of Dr. Martha Shull, Head of English, Volume 1 , Number 12i has finally appeared.

Our opening article discusses Laura Riding and her virtually unknown novel of 1937. A Trojan Ending, Riding's revisionist historical novel, written while she was still living with Graves in Mallorca, has attracted very little critical commentary, but Peter Christensen's article does a great deal to address the issue. Carol MacKay's study ofFord Maddox Ford's Parade ' s End offers a fresh perspective on the character of Christopher Tietjens, who, according to MacKay, was modelled closely on Moliere's Le Misanthrope and its main character, Alceste. Finally, Crystal Lucky examines and reevaluates the flourishing of Black American literature after the Great War. We are pleased to include Daniel Hoffman's review of Roger Asselineau's bilingual edition of British war poetry, which makes the work of Graves, Sassoon, Rosenberg and Owen accessible to French readers.

Several interesting facts about conferences and societies concentrating on literature of the Great War have come to my attention recently: since the centenary of Richard Aldington is to be celebrated next year, plans are well under way for an Aldington conference in 1992 in Montpelier. Further information concerning the project is available from Norman Gates, 520 Woodland Avenue, Haddonfield, NJ

08033. As editor of the New Canterbury Literary Society Newsletter, Dr. Gates is at the center ofan impressive web of Aldington scholars. William Graves has confirmed that the St. John's College Robert Graves Trust is slowly being established. The organisers are currently trying to trace holders of RG letters, so if any reader knows ofGraves letters that have not yet been catalogued, please write to William Graves (La Posada, 07179 Deya, Mallorca, Spain). William Graves has promised an article for a future edition of Focus on the progress of the Trust. Finally, the release from Yale University Press of Barry Webb' s biography ofEdmund Blunden provides a valuable addition to World War I scholarship, not to mention an interesting study of the poet's later life in Japan, England, and Hong Kong.

As al ways, we encourage our subscribers to offer articles for publication on Robert Graves and his contemporaries or on any aspect of World Warl literature. Please send manuscripts for the next issue to Richard Schumaker, Department of English, University of Maryland European Division, 1m Bosseldorn 30, 6900 Heidelberg, Germany.

Patrick Quinn

Fayetteville, NC