MCR student wins University Essay Prize

Congratulations to MCR member Henrietta Claydon, who has been named a joint winner of the University's Shelley-Mills Prize, aimed at promoting the works of Shakespeare. Henrietta's fine essay looked at the history of collecting Shakespeare's First Folio, and a copy will now be kept in the Bodleian Library. 

I am delighted to be awarded joint-winner of the Shelley-Mills prize for this year for my writing about Shakespeare's First Folio. This is such a seminal year for Shakespeare studies, and I was extremely glad that the faculty provided this opportunity for students to share their views about the historical journey and current perception of this remarkable book. I wanted to ask what the real impact has been and may continue to be of sequestering the First Folio into an increasingly elite commodity at total remove from the reality of these texts as popular mass entertainment. It was a joy to write and of course extremely exciting to be recognised for it by the faculty! 

- Henrietta Claydon