Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 01 Fall 1983

              The Santayana Edition
I. Background
The Santayana. Edition was initiated by
members of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, and, in particular, by one of its foremost leaders,
John Lachs of Vanderbilt University.
Another member of the society, Morris
Grossman, wrote to and consulted with
Santayana scholars and laid the
groundwork for a larger and more
organize©! effort. In 1976 Herman
Saatkamp was asked to coordinate and
develop the project, and in October of
1977, the National Endowment for the
Humanities provided funds for a plan
ning grant. The work sponsored by the
planning grant led to important discoveries and established a sound basis
for editing the Santayana Edition. Subsequently, in 1979 and 1981, the
Endowment provided funds to edit volume one, Persons and Places, (Santayana's three book autobiography). Continuing its support, the Endowment
recently (1983) provided funds to complete volume two, The Sense of Beauty,
and volume three, Interpretations of
Poetry and Religion.
II. Current Activities
To date, 1983 has been one of the
most remarkable years for work on the
Santayana Edition. It has included an
agreement with MIT press, the discovery of a major manuscript as well as
over one hundred letters, the reversion
of rights by Charles Scribner, Jr., a
publishing subvention from Corliss
Lamont, and the continued support of
the Endowment for editing volumes
two and three as well as for publishing
volume one.
By an unanimous vote of its board,
the MIT Press agreed to endorse and
publish the projected twenty volume
Santayana Edition. Harry and Betty
Stanton represented the edition vis-a-vis
MIT Press and, principally through the
leadership of Betty Stanton, the edition
won the endorsement of the press and
of many notable scholars (including
Richard Bernstein, Arthur Danto, John
Lachs, Richard C. Lyon, John McCormick, Joel Porte, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, Irving Singer, and others).
After years of attempting to secure a
suitable publisher, it is a delight to
have the resources of a major press like
MIT and the cooperation of its staff.
Fruitlessly for years, the General
Editor searched for the holograph of
The Middle Span only to find it mentioned in some 1940's correspondence.
Then through the efforts of John
McCormick, Scribner's released the last
ten years of its Santayana files fo
Princeton University. Letters in these
files indicated that the holograph had
been given to a Sergeant Harry A.
Freidenberg who had arranged to have
the typescript hand delivered to Scribner's, since the army censors, suspicious
of the chapter on Germany, would not
permit it to be mailed. In gratitude for
Freidenberg's efforts, Santayana gave
the holograph to him. Textual Editor
William G. Holzberger located Freidenberg, and the General Editor then
arranged to receive the manuscript and
to   prepare   its   literal   transcription.