Prize Collection

The Prize Collection was donated to ULL by Dr J.H.P. Pafford (Goldsmiths' Librarian of Senate House Library, 1945-67), in the 1980s.

The collection comprises 81 volumes of English children's fiction from 1865 to 1918. All have a bookplate or inscription showing them to have been presented as prizes, chiefly Sunday School ones. Most are illustrated, and most are bound in unexceptional but attractive and typical pictorial Victorian cloth bindings. Several are publications of the Religious Tract Society or the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

The collection complements the Martin Collection of earlier nineteenth-century books in the Library. It contains some overlap of authors, but shows clearly the development in the emphasis of children's fiction from largely didactic and evangelical works to entertainment.

View the list of the Prize Collection books or search the Main Library Catalogue or COPAC.

For further information see:

Ball, Douglas: Victorian publishers' bindings . London : Library Association, c1985.
King, Edmund M.B.: Victorian decorated trade bindings, 1830-1880 : a descriptive bibliography. London : British Library, 2002.
McLean, Ruari: Victorian publishers' book-bindings in cloth and leather. London : Gordon Fraser, 1974.
McLean, Ruari: Victorian publishers' book-bindings in paper. London : Gordon Fraser, 1983.

shl.specialcollections@london.ac.uk 020 7862 8470