Publishing the writings of Elizabeth Seton sounds like a laudable and rather clear-cut task, at least that is what it seemed back in 1993 when the Sisters of Charity Federation authorized the project. Nine years later those working on this endeavor have celebrated the publication of the first two volumes and are working diligently on a third.

To date we have located 939 letters, along with a substantial collection of meditations, instructions, reflections, copybooks, translations, poems, receipts and other miscellaneous jottings. Our ongoing search to locate and identify as many of Elizabeth's writings as possible has led us to 17 archives as well as private collections and several printed sources. While continuing this exploration we prepared an annotated list of all holdings, arranged by archives, as a tool for

researchers and a first step toward publication. These were published in five installments in Vincentian Heritage, beginning with volume 18, no. 1. They also appear on the web site: www.famvin.org/seton.

Sisters Regina Bechtle, S.C. (New York), and Judith Metz, S.C. (Cincinnati), were appointed co-editors of the project in the spring of 1996. With no staff and little money we plunged into the work of writing role descriptions for ourselves and the advisory committee, creating editorial guidelines, finding a publisher, writing a business plan, coordinating sales and marketing, and directing the scholarly work of the project.

We recruited members of the advisory committee, archival support staffs, volunteers and friends to assist with research, proofreading, editing, indexing, locating illustrations, cover design, marketing and computer expertise. The completed project would not be possible without the dedicated assistance of all of these people.