The Masquerade Handbook was developed in 1991 to help those wonderful people who volunteer to run science fiction and fantasy masquerade competitions. The art of competitive costuming had blossomed over the previous decade, and the complexity associated with the masquerade had also grown. The costuming community learned a great deal about how to stage such an event, and the Handbook was the result of that often painful learning curve.

The combined experience in its pages was the outcome of dozens of such events, postmortems, discussion sessions, and personal experiences. By putting it on paper, the authors hoped to provide a resource so the next person didn't have to start from scratch.

The Handbook was designed for the mid-sized masquerade of approximately 15-45 entries, which takes place in conjunction with a local or regional science fiction convention. Not the Ultimate Rulebook, and definitely not The Only Way Things Can Be Done, it is a guidebook full of things that have been proven to work.

This second edition of The Masquerade Handbook retains the essential character of the original edition by costuming legends Janet Wilson Anderson and Cat Devereaux, and their co-authors. It includes revised versions of articles by several of the authors to better reflect today's practices, and updates terms now widely adopted by the costuming community.

With a new layout, typography and graphics, and a new introduction by Janet Wilson Anderson, the second edition makes this classic work available once again to members of the costuming community. The authors hope that you will enjoy hearing from them and learning from their experiences.