WITHOUT the invaluable suggestions and extraordinary generosity of Saskia Hamilton, Harriet Lowell, and Linda Hall, this book could not have come into being. Nor could I have tracked down many of its pieces (so well hidden in back issues no search engine could find them) without the help of librarians at the Thompson Memorial Library at Vassar College, the Lucy Scribner Library at Skidmore College, Houghton Library at Harvard, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. My gratitude to Jane Eblen Keller, Peggy Fox, Ian S. MacNiven, Darryl Pinckney, and Edwin Frank would be difficult to express, and to my most patient listeners, Marcel and Oona, impossible.
—A. A.