Comparisons are odorous, Dogberry confidently tells Verges¹ - and never more so, it might be thought, than in the matter of literary prizes, where they can often seem horribly gladiatorial. The arguments for and against have been rehearsed often enough. For - in the jumbled acoustic of a competitive age which requires hype and publicity if any announcement is to be audible, prizes ensure attention for literature and heighten its profile; they can help to sell more books and promote reading. Specifically, a prize can reward and encourage the individual writer, sometimes even a neglected one. It may also buy more time for writing. Against - they are often unfair, and even when they are not, they constitute a form of highlighting that intensifies the gloom in which non-prize-winning writers have to live; they soak up money which could have been put to better use in the interests of writers; they confuse pounds and prestige, lucre and literature. The quest for the superlative best, by setting the work of one writer competitively against that of others, debases the value of the positive good.

No one would deny that the awarding of prizes also involves practical challenges for all concerned. For those who judge, there may be the problem of comparing works so differing in degree or kind as to make true comparison on any objective basis virtually impossible. Where the prize entries include a work by a well known writer, it may be hard to detach the ...