Posted July 7, 2026
IGA Book Prizes 2026: Shortlists Announced
We are delighted to announce the shortlists for this year’s two IGA Book Prizes: the Allan Lloyd Smith Prize for the monograph best advancing the field of Gothic studies, and the Justin D. Edwards Prize for the edited collection best advancing the field of Gothic studies.
This year we had 13 books longlisted across the two prizes. The Monographs prize committee, in alphabetical order, comprised Professor Joseph Crawford (chair), Professor Carol Davison, Professor Bill Hughes, Professor Marie Mulvey-Roberts, Professor Andrew Smith, and Professor Angela Wright. The Edited Collections committee comprised Professor Joseph Crawford (chair), Professor Rebecca Duncan, Professor Jason Haslam, Professor Karen McFarlane, Professor Robert Miles, and Professor Catherine Spooner. Tremendous thanks are also due to Alexia Mandla Ainsworth for all her painstaking work as Secretary of the prize and liaison with publishers.
Before announcing the shortlists, we would like to congratulate every single author on the longlist. The books submitted this year were extremely strong, and our judges were highly impressed by the quality of work from all our long-listed authors and editors!
The shortlisted works in each prize are as follows.
Shortlist for the Allan Lloyd Smith Prize 2026 for a monograph best advancing the field of gothic studies, in alphabetical order:
- David Ashford, A Book of Monsters: Promethean Horror in Modern Literature and Culture (Manchester University Press, 2024)
- Emma McEvoy, The Music of the Gothic, 1789-1820 (Cambridge University Press, 2024)
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Dale Townshend, Matthew Gregory Lewis: The Gothic and Romantic Literary Culture (University of Wales Press, 2024)
Shortlist for the Justin D. Edwards Prize 2026 for an edited collection best advancing the field of gothic studies, in alphabetical order:
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Barbara Chamberlin, Julia Round, and Kom Kunyosying, eds., Horror and Comics (University of Wales Press, 2025)
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Carol Margaret Davison, ed., Gothic Dreams and Nightmares (Manchester University Press, 2024)
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Sam George and Bill Hughes, eds., The Legacy of John Polidori: The Romantic Vampire and its Progeny (Manchester University Press, 2024)
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Nick Groom and William Hughes, eds., The Vampire: An Edinburgh Companion (Edinburgh University Press, 2025)
- Andrew Smith, ed., The Victorian Ghost Story: An Edinburgh Companion (Edinburgh University Press, 2025)
The Prizes will be announced at the IGA Conference at the University of Hull, July 28-31 2026. If a prize winner is not present at the conference, the Chair will contact them by email after the awards announcement. After the conference has ended, a blog post will also celebrate the prize winners.
Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors!