| My debts in connection with this project are numerous, but my thanks go first to James L. W. West III, of Pennsylvania State University, whose conversations with me in Cambridge in January, 1986, launched much of what has resulted. Jim West told me of a symposium on William Styron at Winthrop College in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and I am indebted to the many scholars I talked with there on the April weekend of 1986 when it was held, including those with whom I sometimes take issue. My specific gratitude goes to Eva B. Mills, who ran the conference, and to Melvin J. Friedman and Jackson R. Bryer, who edited a special issue of Papers on Language and Literature that included my article arising from the conference, "Discord Toward Harmony: Set This House on Fire and Peter's 'Part in the Matter,'" which evolved into the third chapter of this book. |
| I must also thank Thrse de Saint Phalle for her kindness and infectious enthusiasm when I stayed in Burgundy, and Judith Ruderman for southern hospitality on my visit to Duke University in 1988. Thanks are due as well to Matt Martin and his family, ever ready hosts in Erie, Darien, and New York. For tremendous help on the trip of 1988, I am indebted to Robert Byrd and Patricia Webb, of the Manuscript Department at the William R. Perkins Library at Duke. For help during the later stages of the manuscript, I must mention Jan Beckett, librarian at Harlaxton College, the British campus of the University of Evansville. I thank my colleagues at Harlaxton and in the English department of Bath College of Higher Education for friendships that have created an atmosphere conductive to completion of the book. |
| William Styron himself has been more open, interested, and generous with his time than I at first dared to hope. I thank him not only for permission to publish our conversations and to quote from unpublished manuscripts but also, along with his wife, Rose, for times together in Roxbury, Vineyard Haven, and even the fog of Albion. |
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