The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America is delighted to announce the winners of the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest!
First Prize: Mitch Fraas, Duke University, Anglo-American Legal Printing 1702 to the Present
Second Prize: Maggie Murray, Johns Hopkins, Literature of the Little Review: In Which Margaret Anderson Enters an Antiquarian Bookstore
Third Prize: Sarah McCormick, University of California-Riverside, Desert Dreams: The History of California’s Coachella Valley
Essay Prize: Emily Brodman, Stanford University, Sourcing the Sanctuary Movement
After a two year hiatus, the contest was reinstated last year under the joint leadership of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America, the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies, the Center for the Book, and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, with major support from the Jay I. Kislak Foundation.
Students who entered the contest were top prize winners of book collecting contests at their respective institutions. Judges were once again impressed by the scope and genres represented among the collections. Jean Kislak, a trustee of the Jay I. Kislak Foundation and lifelong collector, served as a member of the competition judging panel. “It was very exciting to see such a diverse array of book collections. These young collectors have shown such skill and creativity in assembling their outstanding collections.”
Mr. Fraas’ collection began when he was studying the legal history of the British Empire and became particularly interested in briefs from the King’s Privy Council. After he serendipitously obtained a 1791 Privy Council brief from Bombay, he began actively pursuing Anglo-American appellate briefs and ephemeral legal printing.Ms. Murray’s collection revolves around Margaret Anderson and the literature of The Little Review, but also includes works by “pioneering female literary figures” such as Aphra Behn and Gertrude Stein. A highlight of her collection is a first edition copy of The Little Review Anthology signed by Anderson in 1953.Ms. McCormick collects books, documents, and related items that focus on the history of the Coachella Valley and, more specifically, Indio, CA, where she was raised. An area of concentration within Ms. McCormick’s collection is the date industry in the deserts of the Coachella Valley.Ms. Brodman, essay prize winner, submitted a collection on the Sanctuary Movement. In regard to assembling her collection, Ms. Brodman wrote:
I learned as much from the process of collecting as I did from the sources themselves, and now read archives and collections (their materials, their order and structure, and the materials or stories the lack) as closely and critically as I read the discrete sources that comprise them.
Prizes will be awarded to both the winning students and the libraries of the institutions from which they hail. The awards ceremony will take place on October 21, 2011 at 5:30pm at the Library of Congress, West Dining Room, Madison Building, 6th floor and will include a lecture by Michael Dirda, a noted bibliophile and journalist. The lecture is free and open to the public; no tickets are required. (more…)
