The genesis of this special issue of Nineteenth-Century Music Review occurred at the Thirteenth Biennial International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music in July of 2004, when the journal was inaugurated at Durham University and Bennett Zon invited Susan Youens and me to serve as guest-editors of an issue devoted specifically to Schubert. The impetus behind this instalment of the publication benefits from the remarkable rise of scholarly interest in Franz Schubert that has been under way for nearly two decades now on both sides of the Atlantic. Distinguished by innovative applications of close analysis, historiographic context and aesthetic considerations, this scholarly groundswell has produced an intriguing new image of the composer – indeed, a vibrant view of a Schubert we never really knew.