In the first twenty years of publication, only four women author review essays: Patricia M. Spacks (Summer 1964), Kathleen M. Williams (Winter 1968), Barbara K. Lewalski (Winter 1974), and Annabel Patterson (Winter 1980). Professor Williams died in 1974; the other reviewers are still members of the Editorial Board.
1980-1989
Robert L. Patten retires from first term as Editor; Edward O. Doughtie accepts a second term as Editor.
Jonathan Goldberg declares in the Winter 1984 review essay that historical criticism and new criticism mistakenly attempt to stabilize texts, whereas structuralism and post-structuralism “restore to criticism the possibility of dealing with our experience of the excess of texts,” the ways in which texts deny “limits” and “ease of access.” At the time this was a revolutionary position for an SEL reviewer to take. The issue also features “The Politics of Astrophil and Stella” by Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass.
In the Summer issue, Claudia L. Johnson publishes the article “Samuel Johnson’s Moral Psychology and Locke’s Of Power.”
SEL cover is redesigned and for the first time uses the feather image.
Sally Hubbard becomes a staff member with the title of Assistant Editor and Business Manager.
Jonathan Lamb publishes his article “The Fragmentation of the Originals and Clarissa.”
Photo: Sally Hubbard, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500–1900
SEL costs $15.00 for individuals, $20.00 for US institutions, $25.00 for foreign institutions. Average number of pages per volume over the decade: 783.