The Rise and Fall of the Journal

Icarus always seemed to be a story about vaulting ambition and its inevitable end. But at least Icarus could not be called a quitter. Crackpot, maybe. Quitter, no.

The Kilvert Society has always published material about Kilvert. They began as foolscap letters, stapled, as you can see, at top left, and carried information about the Society and its latest doings as well as research and commentary on Kilvert.

Over the years the letters morphed into something much more professional, shaped and developed by two successive editors who took the opportunity to improve both content and presentation.

1977 (left) - 2008 (right)

The Journals now

There had always been a mixed bag of content, from indefatigable research of unimpeachable quality, to speculative musings about whether someone's friend's auntie's accountant might have met Kilvert because they had both been in Wales at roughly the same period. There have been far fewer auntie pieces in recent years. (Not that I am in any way against aunties, you understand.)

The Journal used to come out three times each year, then twice a year, and now the Society has decided that Issue 44 (March 2017) will be the last. Here's what Journal 44 has to say about it:

Since, from among the membership no one seems (yet?!) to be itching to become the new editor, it seems likely that, regrettably, The Journal of the Kilvert Society will cease to exist. It appears that, at best, we shall have to revert to a Newsletter which it was before becoming the Journal in February 2000.

It adds a note that:

For reasons of space a number of articles destined for this Journal have had to be held over. It is hoped that these can be published, perhaps one at a time, attached to the Newsletters (if such is the remedy) which will otherwise be confined to reporting the day-to-day activities of the Society. 

So, sadly, the Journal has hit the buffers (or the other way round ?) and is coming to an end. If the new Newsletters don't sound to you like much of an exciting vehicle for cutting-edge research on Kilvert, you'd be forgiven. The promise of blow-by-blow accounts of day-to-day activities doesn't have me teetering expectantly on the edge of my seat, either.

With luck, at least it won't be typed on foolscap, but it is a retrograde step, the loss of something with fragile promise.

Yes, sadly.