The Literary Encyclopedia Scholarship Fund supports

Book Prizes

for major scholarly contributions to the understanding of literature

In 2022 The Literary Encyclopedia will award two prizes, each worth £2000, one for scholarly contributions to our understanding of literature originally in the English language, the other for scholarly contributions to our understanding of literature originally in another language.

Eligibility

Works eligible for these prizes will be biographies, editions, or critical studies of literary writers, groups, works or periods. Volumes of essays by various hands will not be eligible.

The authors of submitted works must be: 1. engaged in research at an institution which subscribes to The Literary Encyclopedia OR 2. contributors of articles to The Literary Encyclopedia OR 3. members of scholarly associations affiliated to our publication who currently have an active membership account on our site.

Funding

These prizes are funded by contributors to and editors of The Literary Encyclopedia who donate their royalties to our Scholarship Fund which also provides research travel grants to early career researchers. Please see https://www.litencyc.com/php/travel_award.php.

Process of Submission

The works submitted for consideration by the assessors for the 2022 prizes should have been published in 2020 or 2021.

Submissions for the prize should be sent to The Literary Encyclopedia by 30th June 2022 and should comprise up to three endorsements of the submitted work by reputed scholars in the relevant field. These endorsements should be confidential (and sent from reviewers directly to us), and should specify the work’s significance and originality in less than 1500 words. Submissions may also be accompanied by copies of published or in-press reviews of the book in well-reputed scholarly journals or national media.

Assessors will review the submissions and prepare a short list which will be announced in early August. In the meantime, we also invite submission of e-copies of the book that is being submitted for assessment. This is not a requirement at this point, but we encourage authors to make timely arrangements with their publishing house for an electronic copy of the book to be sent to us in the course of the summer (by August at the latest). If a book is short-listed, we will need to have the full electronic copy at hand for review as soon as possible.

We regret we cannot accept physical copies.

The winners will be announced on December 1st 2022.

***Please direct correspondence about the prize to Dr Cristina Sandru, Managing Editor***

Research Travel Awards

Each year The Literary Encyclopedia offers 2-4 travel bursaries worth between £500 and £750 each to assist emerging scholars in defraying the costs of archival research on a literary or related matter. Conference attendance is not covered. The award is sponsored by the generous donations of our contributors and editors to the Scholarship Fund set up by The Literary Encyclopedia.

In 2022 the Literary Encyclopedia will resume its award Travel Award programme suspended in 2021 due to Covid-related travel restrictions. At the moment we envisage that the research travel must be taken up and completed by October 31st 2023 and recipients will be expected to provide formal reports on their work by the end of 2023.

The travel grant will be offered to an early career researcher* or PhD student from an institution which subscribes to The Literary Encyclopedia OR a contributor to our publication.

Applications are considered by the Editorial Board of The Literary Encyclopedia whose decision is final. The money is paid on presentation of receipts. Successful applicants will be expected to write a formal report of their work to be published on our website. The contribution of the LE Travel Award should be acknowledged in any resulting publications from these awards.

Applicants should please download and complete the application form attached HERE, and email it to The Managing Editor no later than 30 September 2022. We will announce decisions by late November 2022.

You can read about the winning candidates and research proposals from previous years HERE.

*Early career researcher is “an individual who is within eight years of the award of their PhD or within 6 years of their first academic appointment” (AHRC).

PLEASE FORWARD THIS ANNOUNCEMENT TO ALL INTERESTED PARTIES, COLLEAGUES IN YOUR OWN DEPARTMENT, OTHER MODERN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENTS, CLASSICS, AS WELL AS DOCTORAL STUDENTS.

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