The Howellsian
Volume 4, Number 2 (January, 2000)

Sanford E. Marovitz, current vice-president and program chair of the Society, received so many solid abstracts that he considered requesting slots for two sessions at the annual conference of the American Literature Association, to be held this year not in San Diego as in years past, but in Long Beach, in May, 2000; ultimately, however, he decided to bow to the space requirements of ALA and, as in Baltimore this past year, will organize only a single panel. Tentatively entitled "Howells as Cultural Critic," the panel is slated to include presentations by a seasoned veteran of Howells studies and first president of the Society, Sally Daugherty from Wichita State University, and two relative newcomers to Howells scholarship, Matthew R. Davis from the University of Washington and William Morgan from Brandeis University." Respectively, their presentations are "The Home-Towners: Howells the Critic vs. Howells the Novelist," "William Dean Howells, Failed Utopianism, and the Promise of Supernatural Brotherhood," and "From Sympathy to Complicity: Howells"s Realist History of Sentimental Ethics." Certainly, this panel promised to be a stimulating contribution to Howells discussion.

While membership in the Society has not increased dramatically, we continue to add a few scholars to our ranks. Present membership numbers sixty-five, including several of Howells's descendants.

A year ago, The Howellsian mentioned tentative plans by the W. D. Howells Memorial Committee to hold a two-day conference, "New Psychology, New Politics: William Dean Howells and His Contemporaries," in early October, 2000. While this conference will definitely be held at the Howells Memorial at Kittery Point ' Maine, at this point the actual date for the conference has not been firmly established. The Committee plans to meet in late September, after which Society members can obtain more information regarding conference details, presenters, and other plans by getting in touch with Mariana Oller, Curatorial Assistant to Roger Stoddard, Curator of Rare Books, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. Her telephone number is (617) 495-2441.

Donna Campbell, secretary-treasurer of the Society, continues to refine our website which now has a new, shorter, and, presumably, more easily remembered address: . At present the site contains links to on-line editions of ten of Howells's novels, including two newly added ones, the periodical versions of Annie Kilburn (1886) and The Minister's Charge (1888); comments by Howells on other authors, including Twain, James, Bellamy, Norris, Chesnutt, Dunbar, Hawthorne, Whitman, and Zola; several of his essays, short stories, poems, and plays; aids for teaching Howells; a wealth of biographical material, including letters from Twain to him; annotations of current articles on Howells; a query page; and much else related to Howells, such as photographs, essays about him by his contemporaries, reviews, etc. Society members can list their names on the membership page of this site by accessing the Directory Listing Form. From the site, members may also join Howells-L, an e-mail discussion group which Donna also maintains.