Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Archives

Supplement News from the Russell Editorial Project Edited by Richard A. Rempel, with Diane M. Kerss and Sheila Turcon PROGRESS REPORT In mid-January 1983, the Russell Project sent off to our publisher, Allen & Unwin, Volume 7, Theory ofKnowledge: The 1913 Manuscript, edited by Elizabeth Ramsden Eames in collaboration with Kenneth Blackwell. This successful completion comes only seven months after Volume 1 was sent off in June 1982. Earlier, Allen & Unwin had reiterated their confidence in the Project by signing, during the spring of 1982, a contract to publish The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell in twenty-eight to thirty volumes. In a period ofworldwide economic distress, this massive long-term commitment by Allen & Unwin has been greeted with much pleasure by everyone working on and interested in the Project. Additional evidence of support has been the confirmation of our grant by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the entire five-year period without a third-year interim site appraisal. Such visits are customary in the case of all large editorial grants. As further evidence of our constructive collaboration, Mr. Keith Ashfield of Allen & Unwin has told us that he will publish Volume 1 in September 1983 and Volume 7 in early 1984. To publicize the arrival of these long-awaited and significant volumes, Allen & Unwin have completed a four-page advance brochure. The Russell Editors hope to have copies available at the conference to be held at McMaster 24-26 June on Russell's "humanist" writings 1888-1918. An agenda for the Conference , listing the invited speakers and their topics is contained in this edition ofRussell. The programme is also being widely circulated among Canadian and some American universities. All of those interested in 85 86 Russell winter 1982-83 Russell Editorial Project news 87 tration on Volume 7, is beginning his sustained work with Harry Ruja on the Bibliography, which is also scheduled for completion in 1984. Presumably Volume 2 and the Bibliography will appear jointly sometime in 1985. Thus by the time our five-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada expires, we ought to have six volumes out and a seventh, Volume 13: The Rights o/War, 1914-17, in the press. Brink, Rempel and Moran expect to begin intensive work on this volume by the late summer of 1983, for we have projected a completion date of early 1985; As this edition of the newsletter goes to press, the members of the Russell Project are, on the whole, very satisfied with the progress of the Edition. Since we must wait at least until the fall for the first volume to appear, we cannot say what the critical reception will be. Nevertheless, despite understandable anxiety and interest in the outcome of the reviews , we continue to work consistently with a good deal of intellectual satisfaction and faith in the task of presenting Russell to the scholarly world and the public at large.-R.A.R. Bertrand Russell, the issues which concerned him, and in the publication of the Collected Papers, will be pleased to note the international stature of the speakers who will address us. Ofadded interest to all ofus here is the fact that for the first time our Advisory Editorial Board, made up of twelve scholars in various disciplines relating to Russell's interests, will also be at McMaster. The Advisory Board members will arrive before the Conference starts to meet with the Editors and the McMaster administrative members of the Board ofManagement ofthe Project to give us the benefit oftheir advice and to discuss the progress ofour volumes. For the information of our readers, a list of the members of the Advisory Editorial Board is appended at the end of this report. Now that Volumes 1 and 7 are safely and satisfactorily in the hands of Allen & Unwin, the Editors are pressing ahead on other volumes. The plan to have single or joint editors primarily responsible for individual volumes has led to a more efficient division oflabour than prevailed in the editing ofVolume I, in which all five Principal Investigators were equally involved. This equal involvement on our initial volume was essential for each of the Editors in order to...