Gordon Duff Prize
Your chance to write an essay and win £500!
The Gordon Duff Prize is awarded annually for an essay on a subject relating to the science or arts of books and manuscripts. It is open to all University of Cambridge members, students, staff and alumni. There is an award of £500 for the winner(s) of the competition: the prize can be shared for a co-written work or attributed to two separate entries.
The Prize arose out of the bequest of Edward Gordon Duff, read more about the history of the prize here.
How to enter
Who may compete?
The Gordon Duff Prize is an annual competition and is open to all University of Cambridge members, students, staff and alumni.
On what subject?
Any one of the following subjects: bibliography, palaeography, typography, book-binding, book-illustration, or the science of books and manuscripts and the arts relating thereto.
Proposal of subjects:
Please send a title and brief abstract of proposed subjects to the Cambridge University Library Research Institute, Cambridge, CB3 9DR (researchdevelopment@lib.cam.ac.uk) so as to reach them not later than the last day of Michaelmas Term, 19 December (email preferred).
Candidates will be informed whether their proposed subjects are approved by the Library Syndicate after its meeting in February.
If you have any enquiries related to the prize, please contact William Hale, Rare Books Specialist, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, CB3 9DR (wah26@cam.ac.uk).
Submission of essays:
If the proposed subject is approved, essays, which must not exceed 10,000 words in length, must be sent in hard-copy and electronic form to the Cambridge University Library Research Institute, Cambridge, CB3 9DR (researchdevelopment@lib.cam.ac.uk) by the last day of Lent Term, 24 March (or 25 March in a leap year).
Award:
The Prize shall be awarded in the Easter Term. If essays of sufficient merit are submitted, it shall be open to the Adjudicators to award an additional Prize.
Please note Adjudicators are not obliged to provide feedback to submitted essays.
A copy of the winning essay will be deposited in the Manuscript Department of the University Library.
Alfonsi regis dicta et facta (Pisa: Gregorius de Gente, 1485), the Library’s only Pisan incunable, which Edward Gordon Duff signed and presented to the Library in 1910.
Alfonsi regis dicta et facta (Pisa: Gregorius de Gente, 1485), the Library’s only Pisan incunable, which Edward Gordon Duff signed and presented to the Library in 1910.
Winner of the 2023 prize
Sasha Gardner, 'Light out of darkness: women wood engravers of the 20th century and the Jaffé collection at Newnham College'
In this essay, using new evidence, I shall show why the tradition of typography, taken up in the 1590s after being introduced simultaneously from Korea and Europe, was abandoned in the 1620s in favour of woodblock printing, which had already been used for centuries and was to dominate printing up to the 1870s.
Contact details: sasha.gardner@newn.cam.ac.uk
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