For official details, click here.
THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW is partnering with The Trollope Prize at the University of Kansas to publish the winner of the 2011 graduate essay competition. The graduate winner will receive a $2,000 award and a hardcover copy of a Trollope novel. In addition to publishing the winning graduate essay, The Fortnightly Review will also provide an additional modest honorarium.
The topic: “Trollope and His World.” According to the Trollope Prize website, submissions may include “essays focusing exclusively on the works of Anthony Trollope; comparative essays on Trollope and other writers; essays examining Trollope’s work and career in the larger context of Victorian history, culture and society; historical or literary essays on topics central to Trollope’s work and illuminated by his work; or essays on the reception of Trollope’s work or on his larger cultural influence. The work and career of Anthony Trollope must be a major focus of the essay.”
The Prize is an international competition sponsored by the university’s English Department and the Hall Center for the Humanities. It was launched to call attention to Trollope’s important contributions to literature, which are considerable – the “Barsetshire” and “Palliser” novels, for example, as well as founding The Fortnightly Review in 1865 (see Mrs. W.L. Courtney’s account here). His novel, The Belton Estate, was serialized in the Fortnightly, beginning with the first number.
The Prize committee notes that although “he is one of the most important writers in the Victorian period and in the history of the novel, his novels are often overlooked today. The Prize is designed to help promote the study of Trollope in college classrooms and to encourage student engagement with both Trollope’s work and Victorian literary history through their own intensive research and writing.”
The Prize’s logo (above) commemorates one of Trollope’s other accomplishments: the design of the Royal Mail’s celebrated red pillar letterbox.
There is also an undergraduate competition. Both competitions are described here. For a .pdf announcement suitable for posting click here.
Essays must be received by June 1, 2011; the announcement of this year’s winners will be in August 2011.
- For details, visit The Trollope Prize website.
