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Honour for Essex historian
An Essex historian has been awarded the highest accolade
for a history book in the UK.
Professor
Vic Gatrell, of the
Department of History, has been awarded the prestigious Wolfson
History Prize for his book, City of Laughter.
The Wolfson History Prizes, which were established in 1972, are awarded
annually to promote and encourage standards of excellence in the writing
of history for the general public. Previous winners include the eminent
historians Simon Schama, Eric Hobsbawm and Linda Colley.
City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London,
is a study of English satirical prints in the period 1770-1830 and offers
a panoramic history of manners and cultural change.
In addition to the Wolfson Prize, City of Laughter has won the PEN
Organisation's Hessell-Tiltman Prize for 'the most readable history book
of the year which combines high literary values with path-breaking
scholarship.' It was also listed for the BBC's Samuel Johnson Prize for
all of this year's non-fiction. Professor Gattrell's earlier publication
The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770-1868 was
awarded the Whitfield Prize by the Royal Historical Society.
Commenting on the award Professor Gatrell said: 'For a historian, the
Wolfson Prize is the gold-standard award - the highest accolade for a work
of professional history in this country. My own delight at the prize owes
much to the fact that the Department of History at Essex, which generously
appointed me to a chair four years ago and whose members helped me
enormously in the last stages of writing, shares the kudos. I am more than
happy that my appointment has been vindicated!'
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