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Anne Middleton Book Prize

Anne Middleton Book Prize

The IPPS is delighted to announce the Anne Middleton Book Prize, to be awarded to the best book, published over a two-year period, substantively concerned with the literary, historical, religious, intellectual, textual-codicological, and critical contexts of Piers Plowman and related poetry and prose in the traditions of didactic and allegorical alliterative writing. “Book” refers to a substantial and original piece of scholarly and/or creative work (e.g., editions, translations, monographs), published in any format.

Owing to the generous response to the Anne Middleton Memorial Fund, to which donations are always welcome, there will be two inaugural awards of the prize, one covering works with a publication date of 2015-2016 and one covering 2017-2018 (as already advertised, before the Middleton Fund was established. Winners will receive $150 and free membership of the Society for one year (if recipients are in the “standard” category) or two years (if in the student or independent scholar categories).

The Prize Committee, comprising Andrew Cole, Wendy Scase, and Nicholas Watson, invites nominations of books published in 2015-16 and 2017-18. One nomination per book, of no more than ca. 300 words, to be sent to MiddletonPrize@gmail.com, should include title, publication details, an abstract of the book, and a sentence or two saying how the book contributes to Langland studies or to that of the “world” of Piers Plowman. Anyone may nominate a work: publishers, authors self-nominating, colleagues. The Committee reserves the right to award the Prize to a work that has not been nominated.

Nominators should also arrange for copies to be sent to members of the Prize Committee, preferably in hard copy if applicable, to be posted to: Andrew Cole, Department of English, Princeton University, 22 McCosh Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA; Wendy Scase, Department of English Literature, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT UK; Nicholas Watson, Department of English, Harvard University, Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA. For digital items then the URL or file is fine, and if hard-copy is not feasible a digital copy can be submitted instead, to MiddletonPrize@gmail.com.

Deadline for receipt of nominations and submissions is 15 January 2019. The two inaugural prizes will be presented at the IPPS Conference to be held in Miami, Florida, in April 2019.