In the fall of 1998 the name of the society of subscribers to The Pater Newsletter was changed from The Pater Society of the UK and the USA to the International Walter Pater Society, in recognition of current contributions of European and Japanese scholars to Pater studies. The change of name was introduced in The Pater Newsletter, No. 37. The Pater Society of the UK and the USA had been organized at the Modern Language Association of America Convention in New York City on 28 December 1978. The history behind the formation of this Society and its significance follows. Laurel Brake and Billie Inman had become acquainted in London during the summer of 1977 and had decided to found a newssheet for scholars in Britain and the United States who were interested in Walter Pater, feeling that there was duplication of effort among scholars, internationally, because of lack of communication. Inman would issue News of Pater Scholarship each fall from The University of Arizona; and Brake, each spring from The University College of Wales. At the 1977 MLA Convention, Sharon Bassett, Alana Brown, Billie Inman, and Gerald Monsman got together and decided that a Pater Society should be formed at the 1978 Convention. News of Pater Scholarship, No. 3, which was sent to 110 scholars known to have published writings on Pater, announced the formation of the Society at the 1978 MLA Convention. It was decided at this Convention that the name of the Pater publication would be changed from News of Pater Scholarship to The Pater Newsletter and that all subscribers to the newsletter would be, ipso facto, members of the Society. Officers were elected, and a committee was chosen to write a proposal for a special session at the 1979 MLA Convention in San Francisco. Billie Inman reported in The Pater Newsletter, No. 5, that this special session, “Pater and Modernism,” the first to concentrate on Pater, was well attended. The speakers were Richard Bizot, Sharon Bassett, Franklin Court, Wendell Harris, and Francis McGrath. Laurel Brake announced in this number that a conference, “Walter Pater: Research in Progress,” would be held at Brasenose College, Oxford, on July 16-18, 1980, the first International Walter Pater Conference. Since then there have been such conferences sponsored by the Society at Queen’s College, Oxford, 1988; The University of Kent, Canterbury, 1994; West Virginia University, Morgantown, 1996; and Christ Church College, Oxford, 2000.