The Richards Essay Prize encourages and rewards independent critical reading of English literature.
This year's adjudicator was Dr Clare Bucknell (All Souls College, Oxford).
Winner: Justin Kendall (JDN)
Runner-up: Jonathan Honnor (NCWS)
Highly commended: Tom Hamp (ABH)
Justin wrote an essay on John Milton and Mary Shelley, entitled:
'The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n' (Paradise Lost 1.254-5).
To what extent do Milton and Shelley challenge traditional morality with the monsters of Paradise Lost and Frankenstein?
