I can’t remember when I first met Richard Howard but I’ll never forget the warm August afternoon in 1962 when Richard, recently returned from Paris, came to my office and laid a French book on my desk. It was Sur Racine by Roland Barthes. I had not heard the name, but before I could say anything, Richard spoke: “You must publish Barthes. His Racine belongs on your Dramabook list.” “Barthes,” he continued, “is fast becoming a major cultural figure in France. The same will happen to him in the United States.” I read Richard’s gift (slowly), and decided to publish it even though I was convinced that a book about Racine surely wouldn’t sell. Hill and Wang continued with Barthes. By the end of 1998 we had published twenty-one volumes of Barthes’s work. And there is one last volume to come; Richard Howard is translating it. Sur Racine was a gift that led Hill and Wang to publish the work of a writer who was soon recognized as a thinker of international importance. We owe Howard a great deal.