Lawrence Darton, 2007

The Bibliographical Society of America is pleased to announce that the winner of the first Justin G. Schiller Prize for Bibliographical Work in Pre-20th Century Children's Books is Lawrence Darton's The Dartons: An Annotated Check-list of Children's Books Issued by Two Publishing Houses 1787–1876 (London/ New Castle, Delaware: British Library/ Oak Knoll P, 2004). It was selected from a very competitive group of candidates, which included monographs, articles, dissertations, exhibition catalogs, and web sites.

The award committee judged Mr. Darton's bibliography a major scholarly milestone that surpassed previous standards in the field, which were set by Sydney Roscoe, Marjorie Moon, and Christina Duff Stewart. Over twenty-five years in the making, the illustrated 729-page monograph describes and indexes in scrupulous detail the output of two of the most influential children's book publishing firms during a key period in the genre's development. The Dartons thus builds upon and extends our knowledge about the origins of modern children's book publishing in England during the long eighteenth century and well into the Victorian period. Children's book historians, collectors, and historians of the book and of nineteenth-century print culture will find The Dartons an invaluable guide.

Mr. Darton, an independent scholar, is the great-great-great-grandson of the first William Darton, founder of the house of Darton. His bibliography was also the recipient of the Children's Books History Society's 2004 F. J. Harvey Darton Prize.