Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 21 Fall 2003

              The Santayana Edition
For more than a quarter century Herman J. Saatkamp Jr. has directed the
Santayana Edition. Since the 1970s, when the plan to publish a complete
scholarly edition of George Santayana's work was first implemented, the project
has taken shape under Saatkamp's leadership. The first volumes of the critical
edition include Persons and Places; The Sense of Beauty; Interpretations of Poetry
and Religion; and The Last Puritan. Books one through five of Volume Five, The
Letters of George Santayana, have also been published and the remaining three books
will be published by 2004. Publication of Santayana's Marginalia (Vol. 6) and the
five books of The Life of Reason (Vol. 7) — a very significant milestone — will follow
soon thereafter.
From the beginnings of the project in Florida to its transfer to Texas and,
most recently, Indiana, Saatkamp — unlike Santayana — has delighted and excelled in
university administration. As of July 2003 the general editor of the Santayana Edition
became the president of the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, a career-
crowning achievement that cannot include major responsibilities for the Edition. As a
consequence the project and Its resident regular staff (Marianne S. Wokeck, director
and editor; Kristine W. Frost, managing editor; Johanna Resler, assistant editor; and
Paul Nagy and Martin Coleman, consulting editors) remain at Indiana University
Purdue University Indianapolis (iupui). Professor Emeritus William G. Holzberger
will continue in his consulting role from Bucknell University.
An important legacy of Saatkamp^s deanshlp at iupui is the creation of the
Institute for American Thought (iat), which provides the umbrella for the consortium
of scholarly editions: the Santayana Edition, the Peirce Edition Project, and the
Frederick Douglass Papers. Nathan Houser is director of the Institute. Coinciding —
fittingly — with the creation of the Institute was the Edition's celebration of the
publication of Santayana's Letters. It was a joyous occasion that brought together
many friends of George Santayana and an inspiration especially to those who are
relatively new to the Santayana Society.
For many years the Edition has been supported by the National Endowment
for the Humanities, most recently by a grant since August of 2002. This latest award
was for $20,000 in outright funds with an offer of up to $60,000 In federal matching
funds. So far, thanks in large part to contacts made by John Lachs and James
Gouinlock, and a recent fundraising campaign, the edition has received almost $15,000
in donations. These contributions and the neh match will allow us to hire an
additional graduate research assistant, to travel to depositories holding Santayana
manuscript material, and to update computer equipment and software programs. We
continue to seek external funds in efforts to take advantage of the full amount of the
neh's matching offer.
The moment we turn the magic of the moment into a maxim, we have clouded the sky.
(Santayana to Llewelyn Powys, 20 October 1937)
MARIANNE S. WOKECK
KRISTINE W.FROST
Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
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