Morton N. Cohen Award for a Distinguished Edition of Letters
Competition in 2024 for Editions Published in 2021, 2022, or 2023
Open to Members and Nonmembers of the Association
The Committee on Honors and Awards of the Modern Language Association invites editors to compete for the seventeenth Morton N. Cohen Award for a Distinguished Edition of Letters. The award was established in 1989 by a gift from Morton N. Cohen, professor emeritus of English at the City University of New York. For the competition in 2024, the committee solicits entries of important collections of letters published in 2021, 2022, or 2023. A multivolume edition is eligible if at least one volume was published during that period. Editors can apply regardless of the fields they and the authors of the letters represent, and membership in the MLA is not required.
Under the terms of the award, the winning collection will be one that provides readers with a clear, accurate, and readable text; necessary background information; and succinct and eloquent introductory material and annotations. The edited collection should be in itself a work of literature. The prize, which consists of a cash award and a certificate, will be presented to the winning editor at the association's annual convention in January 2025.
Editors or publishers who wish to submit a work are asked to fill out a submission form.
- If you are an editor submitting a work, please use this form.
- If you are a publisher submitting a work, please use this form.
A multivolume edition that competed for the Cohen Award in a prior year may compete again if a new volume was published during the award period. Subsequent volumes of an edition that has won the Morton N. Cohen Award will not be eligible for a second award, even if published under a different editor. Entries will be accepted until 1 May 2024. The winning editor will be contacted in September, and a public announcement will be made in early December. Because of the volume of submissions, we regret that we are unable to contact each entrant individually.
For further information, write the coordinator of book prizes (awards@mla.org).
Note: From 1991 to 2021, the Morton N. Cohen Award was offered in odd-numbered years.
Past winners of this prize