Editorial.

This issue of Mythlore is the last compiled under the able editorial leadership of Dr. Ted Sherman. Dr. Sherman's great achievement, beginning with his first issue in 1999, was to transform Mythlore into a solid scholarly peer-reviewed journal, with high standards and an outstanding editorial advisory board, in which the best writers on mythopoeic literature could be proud to publish. Yet he also kept Mythlore's readers in mind, and promoted a style of scholarship that was rigorous and challenging, yet approachable and free of excessive jargon or esoteric theory. In this era of exploding interest in the Inklings and other fantasy writers, I hope to build on his work, maintaining the high quality of the journal, but improving the consistency of publication and aiming for more frequent issues.

This issue is a fine example of the sort of mix of articles we like to offer to our readers. Our lead essay, by Scott McLaren, examines metaphysical symbols in several novels by Charles Williams: the Holy Graal in War in Heaven, the Stone of King Solomon in Many Dimensions, and the Tarot deck in The Greater Trumps.

Following this, we have two articles on George MacDonald, one by Bonnie Gaarden on the short story "The Golden Key" and the significant differences of the paths Mossy and Tangle take through the story, and one by Catherine Persyn on At the Back of the North Wind and MacDonald's conception of death as an integral part of the life cycle.

Amanda M. Niedbala contributes a look at the way C.S. Lewis used and transcended Greek myth, particularly The Odyssey, in The Silver Chair. The influence of the landscape and structure of Arthurian legends on the world of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter is the subject of Alessandra Petrina's essay. Dale J. Nelson's short but intriguing article applies Edmund Burke's critical theory of The Sublime to the enduringly popular H. Rider Haggard's She, a favorite of both Lewis and Tolkien.

We round out this issue with three articles on J.R.R. Tolkien. Michael R. Kightley provides a thorough investigation of the way Tolkien used and built on Beowulf in the chapter "The King of the Golden Hall." Corinne Zemmour brings us back to the Arthurian world of Petrina's essay in a study of Arthurian and other medieval romance motifs in the Old Forest episode in The Lord of the Rings, relying heavily on the linguistic features of this chapter. Amy H. Sturgis's paper deals with an exciting and relatively young area of scholarship, the study of fan fiction and what it has to say about how an author's works are appropriated and reimagined by his or her readers. She looks specifically at several types of fan fiction about Rose Cotton.

I was honored and excited to be elected editor of Mythlore by the members of the Society, and I hope I will do a job you can point to with pride. Subscribers can expect to see another double issue (95/96) this fall. I welcome letters, comments, queries, and completed articles, and encourage presenters at Mythcon and other conferences to submit their papers to Mythlore. Please contact me at the address below with any questions or suggestions, or see the society's website for submission guidelines.

Janet Brennan Croft

University of Oklahoma 

Bizzell 104 NW

Norman OK 73019

[e-mail]