The Rosemary VanArsdel Prize is awarded annually to the best graduate student essay investigating Victorian periodicals and newspapers. The prize was established in 1990 to honor Rosemary VanArsdel, a founding member of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, whose groundbreaking research continues to shape the field of nineteenth-century periodical studies.
A list of past VanArsdel Prize winners is below, with links to their published articles (as available).
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2024
Adele Guyton
“‘A Certain Amount of Scientific Education’: Science, Sensation, and the Everyman Narrator in the Serialised War of the Worlds (1897)”
The committee noted, “This is a strong piece of work with a clearly focused and sustained argument that uses periodical studies to make an interesting contribution to readings of the novel and rethinks assumptions regarding class and readerly subjectivity.”
2023
Matthew Stephens
“The Long and Short of It: Rethinking the Longevity of Nineteenth-Century Periodicals”
The committee noted, “This is an engaging account of a vital bibliographic exercise: the cataloguing and indexing of short-lived newspapers.” They praised this “well-researched and staggeringly well-documented” essay’s “incisive analysis of the successes and limitations of existing bibliographic resources on British newspapers.” The judges agreed that the essay offers “a substantive contribution to the field.”2022
Alycia Gilbert
“‘Her Speech Betrayeth Her’: The New Woman and Gendered Slang in the Periodical Press”
The committee notes, “This essay skillfully combines analysis through the lenses of gender studies and periodical studies with a linguistics-based approach. The author brings in a consideration of the intersections of class and gender as they shape the use of language. Periodicals are central to the study, which explores different genres (editorial, fiction, and reviews) and multiple titles.”