The 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.
The winner of the VanArsdel Prize receives $500 and publication of their submission in Victorian Periodicals Review. A list of past awardees can be found here.
The VanArsdel Prize winner is typically announced in August of the prize year. See our awards calendar for all relevant deadlines. Please note that deadlines are subject to change and if needed, will be announced via our social media channels promptly.
Our Most Recent VanArsdel Prize Winner
The winner of this year’s VanArsdel Prize is Adele Guyton (KU Leuven) for her essay “‘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.”