RSVP are pleased to announce that the first winners of the Curran Fellowship are Liz Miller (University of California at Davis, USA) and Sydney J. Shep (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand). Dr. Shep's project, entitled 'Typographical Journals & the Printers' Web: A Global Communication Network', will build upon her earlier work on the production and circulation of these trade periodicals by close examination of a London archive of scrapbooks, correspondence, and annotated journals. Dr. Miller's project, 'The Birth of Slow Print: Literary Radicalism and Print Culture, 1880-1914', will involve inspection of the George Bernard Shaw archive and the holdings of late-Victorian radical periodicals at the British Library for insight into the workings of a radical press self-consciously at odds with mass print culture. The Society received a number of high quality applications for the Fellowship and would like to thank all those who applied. The interest in the Fellowship testifies to the vibrancy of periodical studies, and RSVP is delighted to be able to support such interesting and important research.

The Curran Fellowship is intended to aid scholars studying 19th-century British magazines and newspapers in making use of primary print and archival sources. The Curran Fellowship, made possible through the generosity of Eileen Curran, Professor Emerita of English at Colby College, and inspired by her pioneering research on Victorian periodicals, will be awarded annually in the form of two grants of $2,500 each.

The Curran Fellowship is open to researchers of any age from any of a wide range of disciplinary perspectives who are exploring the 19th-century British press as an object of study in its own right. Applications for the Curran Fellowship for research to be undertaken in 2009 must be submitted in electronic form by the 1 October 2008. Click here to download full details about the Fellowship, including how to apply.

These awards are designed to help defray the cost of travel to the RSVP conference for graduate-student members of the Society (or prospective members). Please send inquiries to president@rs4vp.org.

These awards are funded by donations from members; please consider donating toward these funds in honor of Barbara and Joe.

Previous winners of the Schmidt and Altholz Travel Awards:

• 2008 Shih-Wen Sue Chen and Mary Bell.
• 2007 Kristine Moruzi and Kim Duong.
• 2006 Amy Lloyd, Beth Palmer, and Lorna Shelley.

The Colby Book Prize has been endowed in hnor of one of RSVP's most devoted members by Vineta Colby, another long-time member of RSVP. The annual prize is given to the book published during the preceding year which made a significant contribution to the study of Victorian periodicals. The winner receives a plaque and a monetary award of up to $3,000, and is invited to speak at the following year's RSVP conference. To nominate a book please contact president@rs4vp.org.

Previous winners of the Robert Colby Scholary Book Prize:

• 2008 Kathryn Ledbetter, Tennyson and Victorian Periodicals: Commodities in Context. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.
• 2007 David Finkelstein, Print Culture and the Blackwood Tradition, 1805-1930. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.
• 2006 Linda Hughes, Graham R.: Rosamund Mariott Watson, Woman of Letters. Athens: Ohio UP, 2005.
• 2006 Peter Morton, The Busiest Man in London: Grant Allen and the Writing Trade, 1875-1900. New York and Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

RSVP are pleased to announce Paul Fyfe is the winner of the VanArsdel prize. His essay, 'The Random Selection of Victorian New Media', will appear in the Spring 2009 issue of VPR.

Entries for the VanArsdel Prize for the best student paper on, about, or extensively using Victorian periodicals must be received by April 1 of the year in which the prize is awarded.

Students are reminded that the papers should be 15-25 pages and should not have appeared in print. The winner receives a plaque, a check for $300.00 (USD), and publication of the prize essay in Victorian Periodicals Review. Please send entries to

Kathryn Ledbetter, VPR Editor
Department of English
Texas State University
601 University Drive
San Marcos, TX 78666-4616

Submissions are not accepted by email, but inquiries are welcome to editor@rs4vp.org

Previous winners of the VanArsdel Prize:

• 2007 Jennifer Regan
• 2006 Christopher Pittard
• 2005 Monica Flegel
• 2004 Lorna Huett
• 2003 Marty Gould
• 2002 Troy Gregory
• 2001 Rebecca Edwards
• 2000 Mary Elizabeth Leighton & Russell Wyland
• 1999 no award
• 1998 Jennifer Ruth
• 1997 Michelle Tusan
• 1996 Anya Clayworth
• 1995 Anne Baltz Rodrick
• 1994 no award
• 1993 Virginia McKendry
• 1992 Gary Weber
• 1991 Jerry Coates
• 1990 Andrea Broomfield

Michael Wolff is the Honorary and Founding President of RSVP. Since 1999, the Society has been pleased to ask one of its members to deliver the Michael Wolff lecture at the annual conference. The list of Wolff lecturers is:

• 2008 Linda Peterson, "Characterising Regina's Maids of Honour and their Heirs"
• 2007 Joel Wiener, "'If there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog': Some Reflections on Transatlantic Journalism in the Nineteenth Century."
• 2006 Linda Hughes, "What the Wellesley Index Left Out; or, Why Poetry Matters to Periodical Studies."
• 2005 Leslie Howsam, "Narratives and Editors: History and Historians in Victorian Periodical Research."
• 2004 Lynda Nead, "Living Pictures on Dead Pages."
• 2003 Josef Altholz was to have spoken on "Whimsy, Serendipity and Chutzpah: The Improbable Success of RSVP," but passed away shortly before the conference.
• 2002 Joanne Shattock, "Reviewing Generations: Professionalism and the Mid-Victorian Reviewer."
• 2001 Joanne Shattock's lecture was postponed to 2002 due to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
• 2000 Aled Jones, "The Dart and the Damning of the Sylvan Stream: Journalism and Political Culture in the Late Victorian City."
• 1999 Laurel Brake, "Star Turn? Magazine, Part-issue, and Book Serialisation."