The Seventh Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift was an extraordinary event in many respects. While all of the previous Symposia have enjoyed the reputation of having been wonderful combinations of erudition, stimulation, and friendliness, the Seventh perhaps outdid them, in however small, almost imperceptible ways. In the first place, a festive and exuberant mood pervaded the Alexander-von-Humboldt Haus in June 2017 from the start. To one extent, this atmosphere was created by the fact that the delegates who had gathered from several remote corners of the world – Australia, England, France, Ireland, Scotland, the United States, Wales, and Germany – for three days of learned lectures and animated discussions (including a Round Table on “Reading Swift in the Twenty-First Century”) knew that they had come together to celebrate the 350th birthday of the Dean, THE Dean, the only Dean in the history of Ireland; to another, it was due to the awareness that the event was honoured by the patronage as well as the presence of H. E. Michael Collins, the Irish Ambassador to Germany, who was not only kind enough to open the Symposium with a most complimentary speech, which paid warm tribute to the achievements of the Münster Swift ‘industryʼ (see Derek Scally’s report in The Irish Times of 20 June 2018), but who also gladly engaged in conversation with the international crowd of Prestophiles. His Excellency was greeted by warm addresses of welcome by Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Michael Quante on behalf of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, and Mayor Wendela-Beate Vilhjalmsson on behalf of the City of Münster, and the editors would like to express their deepest gratitude to all three of them.

At times when the struggling for funds has very much become part of the academic routine – and more often than not, with disappointing results – we expressly wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Council). Likewise, we extend warmest thanks to our alma mater, in particular to Dr Anke Kohl, Head of the University’s International Office, and to the Dean of the Faculty of Philology, Professor Eric Achermann. At Headquarters, we are greatly obliged to the professional advice of Vanessa Dartmann and Christiane Thieleke of the University’s marketing staff, as well as to our favourite ‘ministering angel,ʼ Petra Miech, for her able administrative assistance.

In addition to being a festival of scholarship, a Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift has always been what the Greek root suggests it is: a convivial meeting. Prestophiles tend to think here of Sir William Temple’s apophthegm concluding the Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning, “that among so many things as are by Men possessed or pursued in the Course of their Lives, all the rest are but Bawbles, Besides Old Wood to Burn, Old Wine to Drink, Old Friends to Converse with, and Old Books to Read.” In other words, we have reason to be grateful, for genial hospitality and culinary conviviality, to the Hotel Mövenpick and Landhaus Eggert as well as to Franz and Hannah Lauter at Schloss Nordkirchen, truly the Westphalian Versailles. Last but not least, we would like to record our indebtedness to Professor Klaus Stierstorfer, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Philology, who hosted a charming and delightful reception for the conference delegates at the Ehrenpreis Centre.

In Sir William Temple’s enumeration, one field is conspicuously absent: that of music. To make up for this failure, the convenors decided to organize a workshop with Gerald Resch, the Austrian composer of a new family opera entitled Gullivers Reise, and members of the ensemble of the Oper Dortmund, where the opera had premiered in May 2017. The evening turned out a great success, with Gerald Resch vivaciously explaining origins and intentions as well as the modalities of the creative process, and Hans-Peter Frings, deputy director of the Oper Dortmund, the conductor Ingo Martin Stadtmüller, and the singers Joshua Whitener (Gulliver) and Almerija Delic (Vaniliput) on the panel taking questions from the audience and illustrating their points with samples from the opera. The author John von Düffel, who could not be present due to a commitment in Berlin, was kind enough to send a video message. All this while, Dr Michael Bähr was a brilliant Master of Ceremonies.

However, it takes more than convenors, financiers, and institutions to run the show, and we are therefore eager to show our appreciation to all who watched on the sidelines ready to step in whenever their services – bibliographical and electronic, material and moral – were called for: our dear Julia Barisch, the dutiful Ulrich Elkmann of the Ehrenpreis Centre, our dedicated friends Dr Sabine Baltes-Ellermann and Dr Marga Munkelt, Dr Dirk Passmann, the trusted Vice Chairman of the Friends, and, in fitting conclusion, our loved ones Dr Michael Bähr, George and Holde Juhas, and Erika, the one and only, who has now successfully shouldered the burden of seven Symposia.

Finally, as in 2013, the task always following the party, namely to make the scholarly efforts of the Münster Prestophiles available to the worldwide community of Swiftians, was greatly facilitated by a generous grant of the Sparkasse Münsterland Ost, and our most grateful thanks go again to Julia Bergmann and Anna Boeldicke. Given that post festum almost all delegates wrote in praising “the outstanding scholarship,” the “intellectual stimulation,” and “congenial company,” with which the Symposium, “a truly great celebration of Presto,” had provided them, we would like to assure our sponsors that their money has been well spent, and in a noble cause, too. Vivant sequentes!

Münster, April 2018