Sally Burdon, ILAB President, has announced that The B.H. Breslauer Foundation is investing another $25,000 in the Breslauer Foundation Prize Fund, meaning that “this important prize for bibliography can continue to be awarded for many years to come.”
“We owe a great debt to The B.H. Breslauer Foundation for their generosity and support,” said Burdon. Felix de Marez Oyens, President of the B.H. Breslauer Foundation, commented that: “My fellow trustees and I are pleased to make this additional donation in order to enable the ILAB to award every fourth year not only the main bibliography prize of $10,000, but also second and third prizes of $5,000 and $3,000 respectively. The discipline of bibliography is not usually a lucrative pursuit. It is important therefore that the practitioners of this branch of scholarship be encouraged as much as possible by institutional libraries and also by the rare-book trade, which profit from it. We hope that these prizes, which are not inconsiderable, will continue to play a major role in that encouragement.”
The ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography honors the most original and outstanding published work in the field of bibliography. It is awarded every four years. The most-recent winner is Dutch scholar Ina Kok, whose Woodcuts in Incunabula Printed in the Low Countries (Brill, April 2013) was awarded the prize in 2018. The next prize will be awarded in 2022.
The ILAB Prize for Bibliography was founded in 1964. In 2008, its name was changed to the ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography in recognition of a grant of $100,000 given by the Breslauer Foundation in honor of the late Dr. Bernard H. Breslauer (1918-2004), a longtime ILAB-bookseller and second generation bookseller. After his family escaped from Germany in the 1930s, Dr. Breslauer re-established the family business in Great Britain, before emigrating to the US in 1977. He became an ABAA member in 1978, and is believed to have amassed the largest collection of illuminated manuscripts in private hands and published over 100 catalogs during his time as a rare book dealer in New York.
The Breslauer Prize is administered by Prize Secretary, Fabrizio Govi, who commented: “On behalf of ILAB and the international rare-book trade, I express our sincerest gratitude to the directors of the B.H. Breslauer Foundation for their continued support. ILAB received over fifty submissions for the latest prizes, which were awarded in 2018, and we now look forward to receiving even more submissions for the 18th edition of ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography Prize in 2022.”
2022 ILAB Breslauer Prize Now Accepting Enteries
The ILAB encourages scholars, authors, publishers, universities, and booksellers to submit publications for the 2022 prize.
Please send a copy of the work to the offices of the Prize Secretary, Mr Fabrizio Govi:
Fabrizio Govi - Libreria Govi
Via Bononcini, 24 I-41124 Modena ITALY
Or contact the ILAB Secretariat: Angelika Elstner secretariat@ilab.org
All publications submitted for recent prizes are archived at the ABA Library in the UK and can be consulted and viewed for research and study purposes on request. Please contact the ILAB Secretariat if you wish to receive access to the catalogue and the books.
For more details visit the prize website https://ilabprize.org/