UCL Rare-Books Club: Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize finalists 1

This is the first of our two sessions in which we hear from the collectors of the future.

The finalists of the 2023 Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize have now been shortlisted. Some will get the chance to present their collections at this event, and the rest at the partner event on 16 August. Come along to support them and find out about the often surprising collections being built by today's students in London. In this session:

Victoria Gray (UCL): Prized Possessions: a collection of 19th- and 20th-century school prize books
Jenny Grant (Queen Mary University Of London): ‘Read this - and tell others’: inscriptions and the gifting of Polish books to British friends by the Polish Armed Forces, 1939-45
Benjamin Baker (UCL): Artistic and Literary Networks of Fitzrovia: 1920-1948

About the Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize

The Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize is open to students at London-based universities, and this year's applicants include students from Birkbeck, City, and Queen Mary Universities, King's College London, Royal Holloway, Goldsmith's, SOAS, the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art, University Of The Arts London and UCL. Each of the finalists will have the opportunity to discuss their collection with Anthony Davis and judges representing the Bibliographical Society, the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association and the University Of London's Senate House Library.

Previous winners

While you're waiting to see the collections of this year's finalists, read about finalists in 2022, 2021 and 2020. Last year's winner of the London competition, Hannah Swan, went on to be co-winner of the national student collecting competition with her collection 'Swizzle and serve: party-planning books and ephemera'.

Meet and talk to Anthony Davis himself

On 19 July in this series, we're very pleased that Anthony Davis himself will be presenting items from his own book collection, and talking about how he got into collecting and what makes a good collection. If you're an aspiring or current collector, come along and chat.
 

UCL Rare-Books Club aims to promote UCL’s Special Collections for research, and to facilitate conversations between curators, research students and professional researchers working on the collections, but sessions are open to all. They are programmed and chaired by Dr. Tabitha Tuckett, UCL Rare-Books And Academic Liaison Librarian. Sessions take place weekly on Wednesdays in July, August and early September. Details of the full programme will be posted on our UCL Rare-Books Club Eventbrite listings.