Foreword

<p dir="ltr">Welcome to the 2025 volume of the <i>Yearbook of English Studies</i> 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 <i>Yearbook</i> had been ‘established because of the continuing rise in the amount of good work in English studies offered for publication in the <i>Modern Language Review</i>, 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 <i>Yearbook</i> 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 <i>Yearbook</i> was implemented. While it might operate as ‘an additional outlet’ for <i>MLR</i> submissions, ‘a substantial portion of each <i>Yearbook</i> 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’.</p><p dir="ltr">And so with this new policy in place, the 1978 <i>Yearbook</i> (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 <i>Yearbook</i> 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. Volume 19 (1989) saw the introduction of the first ‘guest editor’ for a <i>Yearbook</i>, 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 <i>Yearbook</i> 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 <i>Yearbook</i>. During these years, Professor John Batchelor, Newcastle University, became English Editor for <i>MLR</i>, and took on the role of General Editor for the <i>Yearbook</i> in the period 2006 to 2011. He experimented with new patterns of publication for the <i>Yearbook</i> (two annual volumes), introduced new cover designs, and edited two <i>Yearbook</i> volumes himself in this period: one devoted to Victorian literature, and another entitled <i>Yearbook</i>. From 2011 until 2024, the <i>Yearbook</i> was overseen by Andrew Hiscock, of Bangor University, with <b>[End Page vii]</b><b> </b>Richard Correll as editorial assistant and Gerard Lowe as Production Manager. Andrew continued the <i>Yearbook</i> ’s now-established tradition of representing the diversity of English Studies across its volumes, with editions on topics ranging from <i>Literature to 1200</i> and the history of the book, to <i>Contemporary British and Irish Poetry</i>. His extended contribution to the <i>Yearbook</i> over these years has been considerable.</p><p dir="ltr">Since 2024, I have been General Editor of the <i>Yearbook</i>, shepherding the volume as it continues to represent and to reflect upon the rapidly changing face of English Studies in the twenty-first century. This year, I want to express my thanks to Richard Correll, who is stepping down as editorial assistant. His contribution to the <i>Yearbook</i> has been much appreciated, including by myself and by Simon Davies, the current Production Manager.</p><p dir="ltr">In recent years the <i>Yearbook</i> 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 2025 issue (vol. 55) represents something of a moment of reflection, addressing as it does the vexed and complex status of English Studies today, as it responds to the simultaneous, multiple crises affecting higher education in general, and the humanities in particular. I have edited this volume myself, and am extremely grateful to its many contributors, for their thoughtful and insightful essays.</p>