International League of Antiquarian Booksellers - ILAB Breslauer Prize For Bibliography

ILAB Breslauer Prize For Bibliography

The ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography was first awarded in 1964. The Prize of $10,000 is awarded every fourth year to the author(s) of the most original and outstanding 'book about a book' in the broad field of bibliography worldwide. Any aspect of bibliography (e.g. enumerative, textual, history of the book, design, binding, book trade, etc.) is admitted. Certain categories are not eligible, notably manuscripts, catalogues of books intended for sale and translations of works appearing in another language. Apart from the Prize, the jurors may at their discretion award Honourable Mentions to other deserving entries.

The purpose of the Prize is to draw attention to what it regards as the best academic work being done in the field, to reward and honour it in appropriate terms, and to publicise the League's support for original scholarship.

The panel of judges (or jurors) consists of three professional scholars or librarians and three antiquarian booksellers. They are chosen with an aim to represent the widest possible range of nationalities so that the panel is qualified to adjudicate on books in various languages and on all aspects of bibliography and the history of the book.

Georges A. Deny (of Brussels) was appointed as the first Secretary of the ILAB Prize for Bibliography. He laid down the ground rules and supervised the first and second Awards. He was succeeded by Dr. Frieder Kocher-Benzing (of Stuttgart) who was the longest serving Secretary presiding over the third to eleventh Prize, then by Konrad Meuschel (Germany), Raymond Kilgarriff (Great Britain), and Mitsuo Nitta (Japan). In 2008, the name of the Prize was changed into ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography to honour a generous gift granted by the Breslauer Foundation which was set up by Dr. Bernard H. Breslauer (1918–2004), an ILAB dealer who had a lifelong passion for bibliography. The first ILAB Prize for Bibliography was awarded in 1967 to Jean Peeters-Fontainas, followed by famous scholars like Claus Nissen, Wytze Hellinga, I. C. Koeman, Francois Weil, Gerhard Dünnhaupt, Anthony Hobson, and Lucas Heinrich Wüthrich. The 15th ILAB Breslauer Prize was awarded in 2010 to Lotte Hellinga and Jan Storm van Leeuwen for the “Catalogue of Books printed in the XVth Century now in the British Library, BMC. Part XI – England“ (Hes & De Graaf Publishers BV, 2007) and “Dutch Decorated Bookbinding in the Eighteenth Century” (Hes & De Graaf Publishers BV, 2006). The 16th Prize will be awarded in 2014 to one or more bibliographies published between 2009 and 2012, with Arnoud Gerits (The Netherlands) as Prize Secretary.