The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia is proud to announce that the Society’s president, G. Thomas Tanselle, has been awarded the prestigious Gold Medal by the Bibliographical Society, an organization founded in London in 1892 to promote and encourage study and research in historical, analytical, descriptive and textual bibliography. The medal was presented in a ceremony in London in October. The Gold Medal is conferred on individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to bibliographical studies and the aims of the Society.

Mr. Tanselle, former Vice President of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and adjunct professor of English at Columbia University, has served as president of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia since 1993.  Beginning in 1963 he has published articles in consecutive volumes of the Society’s journal Studies in Bibliography, whose founder, Fredson Bowers, received the Gold Medal in 1969.

Mr. Tanselle is co-editor of the Northwestern-Newbery Edition of the writings of Herman Melville and textual adviser to the Library of America (on whose board he has served since its inception in 1979).  He is a past president of the Bibliographical Society of America, the Grolier Club, the Society for Textual Scholarship, and the Melville Society. His books include Royall Tyler (1967), Guide to the Study of United States Imprints (1971), A Rationale of Textual Criticism (1989), Textual Criticism and Scholarly Editing (1990), The Life and Work of Fredson Bowers (1993), Literature and Artifacts (1998), Textual Criticism since Greg (2005), Bibliographical Analysis (2009), Book-Jackets: Their History, Forms, and Use (2011), Essays in Bibliographical History (2013), and Portraits & Reviews (2015).

For the full text of the Gold Medal Citation, click here.