The Elma Dangerfield Prize
The aim of the prize is to identify and reward new and original work related to the life and works of the poet Lord Byron. It will be awarded to the best book (or, exceptionally, books) on Byron or a Byron-related topic published in any given year, according to the judgement of an Evaluation Committee appointed by the Joint Presidents of the IABS.
The Evaluation Committee will be made up of three academics from three different countries. Committee members will not be paid, and the committee’s composition will not be made public. The Joint Presidents will appoint a replacement for any Evaluation Committee member unable to carry out his/her duties. The Evaluation Committee will report progress regularly to the Joint Presidents. The members of the Evaluation Committee must exclude themselves from the discussion of their own books.
The Evaluation Committee will propose the winning book, substantiate their proposal in a written report and submit it to the Joint Presidents for the announcement of the winner. Winners will then be informed in confidence, before the award is publicly announced at the following IABS Annual General Meeting and in the next issue of The Byron Journal.
Books eligible for the prize must be peer-reviewed and published by an academic or trade press. Preference will be given to books written in English, or translated into English. Undergraduate textbooks will not be considered.
Authors wishing to have a book considered for the prize must submit one copy of the book to one of the IABS’s Joint Secretaries.
Winners of the prize cannot submit another book for consideration for a period of five years.
All books will be evaluated strictly on the basis of their academic value, without regard to their country of publication or the nationality of the author.
Winners of the Elma Dangerfield Prize
2023
Prof. Jerome McGann
Byron and the Poetics of Adversity (Cambridge University Press, 2022)
2021
Geoffrey Bond and Christine Kenyon Jones
Dangerous to Show: Byron and his Portraits (London: Unicorn, 2020)
2020
Dr. Michael Steier
Byron, Hunt, and the Politics of Literary Engagement (London: Routledge, 2019)
2019
Miranda Seymour
In Byron’s Wake. The Turbulent Lives of Lord Byron’s Wife and Daughter: Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace (London: Simon and Schuster, 2018)
2018
Alan Rawes and Diego Saglia (eds.)
Byron and Italy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018)
2017
Bernard Beatty and Jonathon Shears (eds.)
Byron’s Temperament: Essays in Body and Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016)
2016
Sarah Wootton
Byron’s Heroes in Nineteenth-Century Women’s Writing and Screen Adaptation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
2015
Clara Tuite
Lord Byron and Scandalous Celebrity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
2014
Roderick Beaton
Byron’s War: Romantic Revolution, Greek Rebellion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)
2013
Caroline Franklin
The Female Romantics: Nineteenth-Century Women Novelists and Byronism (London and New York: Routledge, 2012)
2012
Itsuyo Higashinaka
Byron the Protean Poet (Kindaibungeisha, Tokyo, 2010)
Draft of statement
Our records do not go back further than 2013. If you received the Elma Dangerfield award please provide bibliographical information indicating the year of the award and title of your book and we will happily your name to the list of award winners on this website.
Please send your information to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Apologies for any omissions: our records do not extend back to the award's inception.