There is no need for this journal. It is the product of desire: perhaps most particularly the desire to foster, in print, something like the collegial dialogue that occurs on the margins of—just before and just after (or long after)—the work in other academic journals, scholarly monographs, conferences.

At its most ambitious, The Hare seeks to bend the horizon of possibilities for what kinds of writing we use to engage our discipline and what kinds of materials we deem appropriate for our consideration. We hope to make available short, sharp, stylish, creative engagements with and through all topics of interest to scholars of early modern literature.

The path to this inaugural issue has been a long and winding one. We are grateful to many colleagues for their interest and encouragement along the way, and most especially to our superb editorial board and first-issue contributors for putting their names behind this project. Thanks to Mary Baldwin College for financial support. Our webmaster Robert Matney is the sole reason you are able to read this journal online, and we are grateful for his technical skill and remarkable patience. Phoebe West provided the fine illustrations, including our logo.

The Hare will appear three times yearly. Please read it and tell your colleagues and students about it. Please contribute. And please send us suggestions for how we might improve it or develop its flexible format in yet unthought of ways. You can contact us through this website, at our respective institutions, or at thehareonline [at] gmail [dot] com.

Jeremy Lopez, University of Toronto
Paul Menzer, Mary Baldwin College