Category:The Prize

Title: The Prize

Editor: Rev. John Erskine Clarke

Publisher: William Macintosh and W. Wells Gardner

The Prize was a Victorian periodical that ran from 1876 to 1931. The original name of the journal was The Children’s Prize, which ran from 1863 to 1875 before becoming The Prize. The Prize was founded and originally edited by Rev. John Erskine Clarke. It was published in London E.C., Middlesex, and printed by Strangeways and Walden (1863-Feb 1872) and John Strangeways (March 1872-1879+). Some of the main contributors to the periodical were the editor (J. Erskine Clarke), Eliza Cook, and C.W. Jones.^[1]

Each issue of The Prize was sold for a penny, and was intended for both a boy and girl audience. The periodical contained pieces of poetry, short stories, some serial stories, and several Biblical stories. Most issues had a color engraving on the cover as well as several black and white engravings on the interior. A religious and moral theme is pervasive in most of the articles. In the years preceding the publication of The Prize there was a surprising increase of children’s literature. Due to the rapid expansion of the genre, many critics felt that the quality of children’s literature was being compromised (such as the "penny dreadfuls" for boys). Critics were concerned that low-quality literature would be harmful to children and, consequently, the society as a whole (133, 17).^[2][3] The Prize was an attempt to combat this “low state of children’s reading matter.”^[4] Clarke hoped that his magazine would inspire piety and virtue in his young audience (273).^[5] Rev. Clarke edited many other works, most of which were religious. Some of these works include The Parish Magazine, Church Bells, Chatterbox, and Church Folk’s Home Magazine (258).^[6] Rev. J. Erskine Clarke was the Vicar of Derby when he began The Prize (258).^[7] The church and the Sunday School Movement heavily influenced Rev. Clarke, and, in turn, influenced the content of The Prize (273).^[8] Diana Dixon, a literary scholar, says that this magazine was often given away to children as a prize within Sunday Schools. Dixon proposes that this might explain the name The Prize (141).^[9]

Notes

1. ↑ WD.
2. ↑ Patrick A. Dunae, “Penny Dreadfuls:Late Ninteenth-Century Boys’ Literature and Crime,” Victorian Studies 22.2 (1979): 133-150, JSTOR, Web, 5 April 2010.
3. ↑ Marjory Lang, “Childhood’s Champions: Mid-Victorian Children’s Periodicals and the Critics,” Victorian Periodicals Review 13.1-2, (1980): 17-31, JSTOR, Web, 5 April 2010.
4. ↑ Cornelia Meigs, ed. A Critical History of Children’s Literature, New York: MacMillan Co. 1964, 273, Print.
5. ↑ Meigs.
6. ↑ Thompson Cooper, Men of the time: A dictionary of contemporaries, containing biographical notices of eminent characters of both sexes, 11th ed, London: George Routledge and Sons, 1884, Google Book Search, Web, 15 Mar. 2010.
7. ↑ Cooper.
8. ↑ Meigs.
9. ↑ Michael Harris, and Alan Lee, eds, The Press in English Society from the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Century, Rutherford: Action Society Trust, 1986, Print.

Submitted by: Olson, Ephraim: section 1, Winter 2010