The Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given annually for outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas.
Established by the Mythopoeic Society in 1971, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award is given for "fiction in the spirit of the Inklings", and the Scholarship Award for non-fiction work.[1][2] The award is a statuette of a seated lion, with a plaque on the base. It has drawn resemblance to, and is often called, the "Aslan".[3]
The Mythopoeic Award is one of the "principal annual awards" for fantasy according to critic Brian Stableford.[4] From 1971 to 1991, there was one award per category, annual but not always awarded before 1981. Dual awards in each category were established in 1992: Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards for Adult Literature and Children's Literature; Scholarship Awards in Inklings Studies, and Myth and Fantasy Studies.[1][5] In 2010, a Student Paper Award was introduced for the best paper presented at Mythcon by an undergraduate or graduate student;[6] it was renamed the Alexei Kondratiev Award several months after its creation.[7]
The 2023 winners were announced virtually at the Mythopoeic Society's Online Midsummer Seminar 2023.[8]
Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards
In the following tables, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than when the novel was first published. Each year links to the corresponding "year in literature". Entries with a blue background and an asterisk (*) next to the writer's name have won the award; those with a white background are the other nominees on the shortlist.[9][10]
There are two Mythopoeic Scholarship Awards since 1992 (and a Student Paper Award related to Mythcon, not covered here, since 2010).[6] The Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies dates from 1971, in effect, its name was expanded in 1992.[11]
Scholarly works have three years to win the award once and may be on the final ballot three times.[12]
1976 – Tolkien Criticism by Richard C. West; C. S. Lewis, An Annotated Checklist by Joe R. Christopher and Joan K. Ostling; Charles W. S. Williams, A Checklist by Lois Glenn
2013 – Green Suns and Faërie: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien by Verlyn Flieger
2014 – Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays by Jason Fisher, ed.
2015 – C. S. Lewis and the Middle Ages by Robert Boenig
2016 – Charles Williams: The Third Inkling by Grevel Lindop
2017 – The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams by Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski
2018 – The Inklings and King Arthur: J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, C. S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield on the Matter of Britain by Sørina Higgins, ed.
2019 – There Would Always Be a Fairy Tale: More Essays on Tolkien by Verlyn Flieger
2020 – “The Sweet and the Bitter”: Death and Dying in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings by Amy Amendt-Raduege
2021 – Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer by John M. Bowers
2022 – Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages by Holly Ordway
2023 – Charles Williams and C.S. Lewis: Friends in Co-inherence by Paul S. Fiddes
1999 – A Century of Welsh Myth in Children's Literature by Donna R. White
2000 – Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness by Carole G. Silver
2001 – King Arthur in America by Alan Lupack and Barbara Tepa Lupack
2002 – The Owl, the Raven & the Dove: The Religious Meaning of the Grimms' Magic Fairy Tales by G. Ronald Murphy
2003 – Fairytale in the Ancient World by Graham Anderson
2004 – The Myth of the American Superhero by John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett
2005 – Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography by Stephen Thomas Knight
2006 – National Dreams: The Remaking of Fairy Tales in Nineteenth-Century England by Jennifer Schacker
2007 – Gemstone of Paradise: The Holy Grail in Wolfram's Parzival by G. Ronald Murphy, S.J.
2008 – The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous by Tom Shippey
2009 – Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children's Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper by Charles Butler
2010 – One Earth, One People: The Mythopoeic Fantasy Series of Ursula K. Le Guin, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L'Engle and Orson Scott Card by Marek Oziewicz
2011 – The Victorian Press and the Fairy Tale by Caroline Sumpter
