The Ross Roy Prize is awarded annually to the best PhD thesis submitted on a subject relating to Scottish literature. Judged by a panel of expert scholars, the Prize commemorates the outstanding contribution to Scottish literature made by Professor G. Ross Roy of the University of South Carolina.

The 2024 Ross Roy Prize is awarded to Dr Charlotte Lauder, for her dissertation on ‘Popular Scottish Magazine Culture, 1870-1920: Press, Print, Nation’.

Centred on the first half-century of The People’s Friend (1869-present), Lauder’s project is the first examination of magazines produced in Scotland between 1870 and 1920. Drawing on a variety of printed and manuscript magazines, as well as unseen archival material and private collections, the dissertation emphasises the people behind the press, including the proprietors, editors, and contributors of mass-produced magazines. It shows that popular Scottish magazines were culturally and literarily engaged between 1870 and 1920, during which period they constructed a distinct sense of Scottish national identity.

The judges praised the winning thesis as an exceptional piece of scholarship which would be a major achievement for a scholar at any career stage. Admiring the project’s range, ambition and humour, the panel noted its clear potential to spark new discussions of magazine culture, popular literature, women’s romance literature, and Scottish periodical publishing. Drawing together a range of archival sources and scholarly debates, Lauder’s synthesis delivers an original and convincing revision to the larger Scottish literary narrative.

The winner of the Ross Roy Prize receives a cash prize and will be publicly recognised at the Saltire Society’s prestigious Fletcher of Saltoun Awards in March 2025.

Warm congratulations to the winner, their supervisors, and many thanks to our panel of judges.