Announcing the SHARP First Book Award

We are delighted to launch a new prize: the First Book Award, a new category nested within the Book History Book Prize.

SHARP’s awards, fellowships and prizes recognize, celebrate and accelerate new, excellent work in book history. For some time there’s been conversations within SHARP about how we might open up our awards, partly in recognition of the important role we hold as a leading international book history association in bestowing symbolic value and distributing scarce financial resources. The question about the book history research that SHARP values is multifaceted; it bears on career stages, professional pathways, languages and internationalism, and the changing formats of publication increasingly chosen by SHARP members. Since 2024, discussions within an Awards Working Group, the Executive Committee and the Board have carefully negotiated aspirations and the potential practicalities (of finance, administration, and juror labour) of any new prizes. 

In creating the First Book Award we wish to honor authors for the publication of their first peer-reviewed monographs, including scholars in the early stages of their career, by offering a prize that makes a significant positive intervention at a crucial career stage. We hope that publishers would consider and put forward first-time monographs alongside their nominations for the Book History Prize.