Alain Riffaud wins 19th ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography for landmark Molière catalogue

The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) has announced the winners of the 19th ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography, with French scholar Alain Riffaud awarded First Prize for his Catalogue Molière: 1660–1673 (Le Mans: Matière à Dire, 2025).

The 2026 Prize attracted 117 submissions, an increase of almost 20 per cent on the previous award and the highest number in the recent history of the Prize. Entries ranged across the full breadth of bibliography and book history, from medieval manuscripts and early printing to the history of libraries, book collecting, typography, illustration, print culture and the book arts.

The Jury described this year’s field as exceptionally strong and emphasised its intention to recognise works that would “endure as permanent contributions to the field” and stand the test of time as reference works for academics, booksellers, collectors and librarians.

At the centre of this year’s awards is Alain Riffaud’s extraordinary reassessment of the publishing history of one of the most important figures in world theatre.

A new understanding of Molière in print

Riffaud’s Catalogue Molière: 1660–1673 fundamentally revises the bibliography of editions of Molière published during the playwright’s lifetime and immediately following his death.

Beginning with the first edition of Les Précieuses ridicules in 1660 and continuing through editions of Le Malade imaginaire published shortly after Molière’s death in 1673, the catalogue examines a period of exceptional publishing activity in which the playwright’s growing success attracted publishers, printers and counterfeiters.
Most remarkably, Riffaud identifies 15 previously unknown editions.

Using the methods of physical bibliography, he reconstructs the chronology and production of editions within a complex world of counterfeits, different issues, concealed addresses, shared editions and composite copies. Printers and publishers are identified through evidence including printing material and compositional practices, while archival sources and detailed tables place the bibliography within the legal, commercial and administrative world of seventeenth-century publishing.

In awarding the First Prize, the Jury praised the work’s “practical utility, scope and relevance”, its bibliographical methodology, quality of presentation and significant body of previously unpublished material.

Jury member Yann Sordet (Bibliothèque Mazarine) described the work as both a bibliography and an important contribution to the history of the book, providing collectors, scholars, theatre historians, booksellers and librarians with a substantially revised and expanded understanding of Molière’s works. Richly illustrated to facilitate the identification of editions, the volume is at once a practical reference tool and a major work of scholarship on the relationship between theatre and the world of books.

An increasingly international Prize

The First Prize carries an award of US$10,000.

Second Prize, with an award of US$5,000, was presented to Manuel Suárez Rivera for La alhaja más preciosa: Historia de la Biblioteca de la Real Universidad de México (1761–1815) (Ciudad de México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas, 2022).

Heidrun Lange-Krach received Third Prize, with an award of US$3,000, for Das Neue Gebetbuch Kaiser Maximilians I. in seiner Entstehung (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2026).

The 19th Prize also marks an important development in the international reach of the ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography. Following the 18th Prize in 2022, the Jury and ILAB sought actively to encourage submissions beyond the traditionally strong fields of Europe and North America. Special Prizes were introduced to recognise outstanding work from previously under-represented regions, while the Jury was expanded to accommodate submissions published in Asian languages.

That initiative has resulted not only in a significant increase in the overall number of entries but also in greater participation from publishers, academics, librarians and scholars internationally.

The Special Prize for an Asian Submission was awarded to Japanese scholar Koichi Yukishima for The Birth of Bibliography: Study of Conrad Gesner’s Bibliotheca universalis (Tokyo: Nichigai Associates, 2022), published in Japanese.

The Special Prize for a Central & South American Submission went to Agnes Gehbald for A Colonial Book Market: Peruvian Print Culture in the Age of Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023).

A further Special Prize for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage was awarded to Oleksandr Okhrimenko and Fr Methodius (Stanislav) Voloshchenko for Apostolus Christinopolitanus (Kyiv: Horobets Publishing House, 2023).

Each of the three Special Prizes carries an award of US$1,000, made possible through generous donations from booksellers Asia Bookroom, Peter Harrington, and Scott DeWolfe and Charles Kutcher.

An Honorable Mention was awarded to Canadian scholar Mark E. Andrews for a remarkable series of four publications devoted to the history of science, engineering and photography: The Science and Engineering of Water: An Illustrated Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts on Italian Hydraulics, 1500–1800 (2022); The Science and Engineering of Materials: A Theatre of Machine Books, 1472–1800 (2023); The Science and Engineering of Water: An Illustrated Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts on Hydraulics North of the Alps and around the Globe, 1400–1800 (2024); and The Photographer at Work: Documenting Civil Engineering 1853–1913 (2025).

117 submissions reflecting the breadth of bibliography today

The ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography was established to encourage and recognise outstanding work in bibliography and book history and has become one of the most prestigious international awards in the field.

The 117 works considered for the 19th Prize demonstrate the extraordinary breadth of bibliographical scholarship today. Entries included bibliographies devoted to individual authors, catalogues of private, university and national collections, critical editions and facsimiles, national book histories, and studies of printing, publishing, collecting, libraries, typography, paper, bookbinding, annotation and illumination.

Subjects ranged from books, maps, prints, music and manuscripts to engineering, exploration, food, magic, children’s books, gender, library dispersal and the destruction and loss of collections.

Prize Secretary Daniel De Simone said that the growth and increasing geographical diversity of submissions demonstrated the strength of bibliographical research being undertaken internationally and the important role the Prize continues to play in encouraging authors, publishers, academics and library institutions.

The winners of the 19th ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography will be honoured in Berlin during the 5th ILAB Symposium on 17 September 2026.