Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English Language. One is awarded for fiction and the second for biography.
Major literary figures to receive the award include D. H. Lawrence, Arnold Bennett, John Buchan, Robert Graves, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, Muriel Spark, J.G. Ballard, Angela Carter, Margaret Drabble and Salman Rushdie.
2010 Winners & ShortlistsJames Tait Black Memorial Prizes
, by A.S. Byatt, U.K.- The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
, by Reif Larsen US
- Strangers
, by Anita Brookner, U.K.
- Nocturnes
, by Kazuo Ishiguro, Japan-U.K.
- Wolf Hall
, by Hilary Mantel, U.K.
, by John Carey, U.K. - The English Opium Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey
by Robert Morrison CA
- Cheever: A life,
by Blake Bailey, U.S.
- Muriel Spark: The Biography
, by Martin Stannard, U.K.
- A Different Drummer: The Life of Kenneth MacMillan, by Jann Parry, U.K.
2009 Fiction Winner & Shortlisted
Winner: The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry - Nearing her one-hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mentalhospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. Over the weeks leading up to this upheaval...
Sputnik Caledonia by Andrew Crumey - Robbie Coyle is an imaginative kid. He wants so badly to become Scotland's first cosmonaut that he tries to teach himself Russian and trains for space exploration in the cupboard under the sink. But the place to which his 
fantasies later take him... More
A Mercy by Toni Morrison - accept a slave in lieu of payment of a debt from aplantation owner, little Florens' life changes. With her intelligence and passion for wearing the cast-off shoes of her... More
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry - Nearing her one-hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. Over the weeks leading up to this upheaval... More
A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif - Why did a Hercules C130, theworld's sturdiest plane, carrying Pakistan's military dictator General Zia ul Haq, go down on 17 August, 1988? Was it because of: mechanical failure, human error, the CIA's impatience, a blind woman's curse or Generals... More
Pilcrow by Adam Mars-Jones - Growing up disabled and gay in the 1950's, circumstances force John Cromer from an early age to develop an intense and vivid internal world. As his character develops, this ability to transcend external circumstance through his own strength of... More
2009 Biography Winner & Shortlist
Winner A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and their Remarkable Families by Michael Holroyd- Henry Irving - a merchant's clerk who became the savior of British theater - and Ellen Terry, who made her first theater appearance as soon as she could walk, were the king and queen of the Victorian stage. This book explores their public and... More
Arthur Miller by Christopher Bigsby - Arthur Miller was a prominent figure in American literature and cinema for over sixty years, writing a wide variety of plays - including The Crucible, A View from the Bridge, All My Sons, and Death of a Salesman - which are still performed, studied and lauded throughout the world. More
Chagall: Love and Exile by Jackie Wullschlager- 'When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is'. Picasso said this in the 1950s, when he and Chagall were eminent neighbours living in splendour on the Cote d'Azur. But behind Chagall's role as a pioneer of modern art lay struggle, heartbreak, bitterness, lost love, exile, and the miracle of survival. Born the son of a Russian Jewish herring merchant, Chagall fled the repressive 'potato-coloured' czarist empire in 1911 to develop his genius in Paris, living alongside Modigliani and Leger in La Ruche, the artist's colony where 'you either died or came out famous'. Through war and revolution in Bolshevik Russia, Weimar Berlin, occupied France and 1940s New York, he gave form to his dreams, longings and memories in paintings which are among the most humane and joyful of the 20th century. More
Gabriel García Márquez: A Life by Gerald Martin - Describes the tension in the author's life between celebrity and literary quality, between politics and writing; and between power, solitude and love; and the contrast between his Caribbean background and the gloomier authoritarianism of highland... More
Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love by Sheila Rowbotham - Challenging both capitalism and the values of Western civilization, the gay socialist writer Edward Carpenter had an extraordinary impact on the cultural and political landscape of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A mystic... More
2008 Winners
Two writers have joined the ranks of literary giants such as DH Lawrence, EM Forster and Graham Greene by winning the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes.
Rosalind Belben won the fiction prize for her acclaimed novel, Our Horses in Egypt
Rosemary Hill is the recipient of the biographyprize for her first book, God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain.
Shortlists for 2008
An award-winning poet, a best-selling American author and a Man Booker Prize contender are on the shortlist for Britain's oldest literary award.
The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are awarded annually by the University of Edinburgh for the best work of fiction and the best biography published during the previous year.
Acclaimed writers John Burnside, Daniel Mason and Mohsin Hamid are on the 2008 shortlist for the £10,000 awards, along with Rosalind Belben and newcomer Gee Williams. The five novels competing for the £10,000 fiction prize are Our Horses in Egypt
Contenders for the biography prize include accounts on philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill and architect Augustus Pugin who designed the Houses of Parliament. The shortlisted works for the biography section, also with a £10,000 prize are Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes - In Search of Blind Willie McTell
YEAR OF AWARD |
FICTION | BIOGRAPHY |
2006 |
Cormac McCarthy The Road  (Picador) |
Byron Rogers The Man Who Went into the West: The Life of R. S. Thomas (Aurum Press) |
2005 |
Ian McEwan Saturday  (Jonathan Cape) |
Sue Prideaux Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream  (Yale University Press) |
2004 |
David Peace GB84  (Faber) |
Jonathan Bate John Clare  (Picador) |
2003 |
Andrew O'Hagan Personality  (Faber) |
Janet Browne Charles Darwin: The Power of Place: Power of Place v. 2  (Jonathan Cape) |
2002 |
Jonathan Franzen The Corrections  (Fourth
Estate) |
Jenny Uglow Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future  (Faber) |
2001 |
Sid Smith Something Like a House  (Picador) |
Robert Skidelsky John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain, 1937-1946 Vol 3  (Macmillan) |
2000 |
Zadie Smith White Teeth  (Penguin UK) |
Martin Amis Experience  (Jonathan Cape) |
1999 |
Timothy Mo Renegade or Halo2 (Paddleless Press) |
Kathryn Hughes George Eliot: The Last Victorian (Fourth Estate) |
1998 |
Beryl Bainbridge Master Georgie (Duckworth) |
Peter Ackroyd The Life of Thomas More (Chatto & Windus) |
1997 |
Andrew Miller Ingenious Pain (Sceptre imprint, Oxford University Press) |
R.F. Foster W.B. Yeats: A Life Volume1 - The Apprentice Mage 1965-1914 [Hodder & Stoughton]) |
1996 |
Joint Award Graham Swift Last Orders (Picador Macmillan) and Alice Thompson Justine (Canongate) |
Diarmaid MacCulloch Thomas Cranmer: A Life (Yale) |
1995 |
Christopher Priest The Prestige (Touchstone) |
Gitta Sereny Albert Speer: His Battle with the Truth (Macmillan) |
1994 |
Alan Hollinghurst The Folding Star (Chatto & Windus) |
Doris Lessing Under My Skin (Harper Collins) |
1993 |
Caryl Phillips Crossing The River (Bloomsbury) |
Richard Holmes Dr Johnson And Mr Savage (Hodder & Stoughton) |
1992 |
Rose Tremain Sacred Country (Sinclair Stevenson) |
Charles Nicoll The Reckoning: The Murder Of Christopher Marlowe (Jonathan Cape) |
1991 |
Iain Sinclair Downriver (Michael Joseph) |
Adrian Desmond and James Moore Darwin (Paladin) |
1990 |
William Boyd Brazzaville Beach (Sinclair Stevenson) |
Claire Tomalin The Invisible Woman: The Story Of Nelly Ternan And Charles Dickens (Viking) |
1989 |
James Kelman A Disaffection (Secker & Warburg) |
Ian Gibson Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life (Faber & Faber) |
1988 |
Piers Paul Read A Season In The West (Secker & Warburg) |
Brian McGuinness
Wittgenstein, A Life: Young Ludwig (1889-1921) (Duckworth) |
1987 |
George Mackay Brown The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories (John Murray) |
Ruth Dudley Edwards, Victor Gollancz: A Biography (Victor Gollancz) |
1986 |
Jenny Joseph Persephone (Bloodaxe Books) |
D. Felicitas Corrigan Helen Waddell (Victor Gollancz) |
1985 |
Robert Edric Winter Garden (André Deutsch) |
David Nokes Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed (OUP) |
1984 |
Joint Award: J. G. Ballard Empire Of The Sun (Gollancz) and Angela Carter Nights At The Circus (Chatto & Windus) |
Lyndall Gordon Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life (OUP) |
1983 |
Jonathan Keates Allegro Postillions (Salamander Press) |
Alan Walker Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years (Faber) |
1982 |
Bruce Chatwin On The Black Hill (Cape) |
Richard Ellmann James Joyce (OUP) |
1981 |
Joint Award: Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children (Cape) and Paul Theroux The Mosquito Coast (Hamish Hamilton) |
Victoria Glendinning Edith Sitwell: Unicorn Among Lions (Weidenfeld) |
1980 |
J. M. Coetzee Waiting For The Barbarians (Secker & Warburg) |
Robert B. Martin Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart (OUP) |
1979 |
William Golding Darkness Visible (Faber) |
Brian Finney Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography (Faber) |
1978 |
Maurice Gee Plumb (Faber) |
Robert Gittings The Older Hardy (Heinemann Educational) |
1977 |
John Le Carré The Honourable Schoolboy (Hodder & Stoughton) |
George Painter Chateaubriand, Vol.1: The Longed-For Tempests (Chatto & Windus) |
1976 |
John Banville Doctor Copernicus (Secker & Warburg) |
Ronald Hingley A New Life Of Chekhov (OUP) |
1975 |
Brian Moore The Great Victorian Collection (Cape) |
Karl Miller Cockburn's Millennium (Duckworth) |
1974 |
Lawrence Durrell Monsieur, Or The Prince Of Darkness |
John Wain Samuel Johnson |
1973 |
Iris Murdoch The Black Prince |
Robin Lane Fox Alexander The Great |
1972 |
John Berger G |
Quentin Bell Virginia Woolf |
1971 |
Nadine Gordimer A Guest Of Honour |
Julia Namier Lewis Namier |
1970 |
Lily Powell The Bird Of Paradise |
Jasper Ridley Lord Palmerston |
1969 |
Elizabeth Bowen Eva Trout |
Antonia Fraser Mary, Queen Of Scots |
1968 |
Maggie Ross The Gasteropod |
Gordon S. Haight George Eliot |
1967 |
Margaret Drabble Jerusalem The Golden |
Winifred Gérin Charlotte Brontë, The Evolution Of Genius |
1966 |
Joint Award: Christine Brooke-Rose Langrishe and Aidan Higgins Go Down |
Geoffrey Keynes The Life Of William Harvey Such |
1965 |
Muriel Spark The Mandelbaum Gate |
Mary Moorman William Wordsworth, The Later Years 1803-1850 |
1964 |
Frank Tuohy The Ice Saints |
Elizabeth Longford Victoria R.I. |
1963 |
Gerda Charles A Slanting Light |
Georgina Battiscome John Keble: A Study In Limitations |
1962 |
Ronald Hardy Act Of Destruction |
Meriol Trevor Newman: The Pillar And The Cloud and Newman: Light In Winter |
1961 |
Jennifer Dawson The Ha-Ha |
M. K. Ashby Joseph Ashby Of Tysoe |
1960 |
Rex Warner Imperial Caesar |
Canon Adam Fox The Life Of Dean Inge |
1959 |
Morris West The Devil's Advocate |
Christopher Hassall Edward Marsh |
1958 |
Angus Wilson The Middle Age Of Mrs Eliot |
Joyce Hemlow The History Of Fanny Burney |
1957 |
Anthony Powell At Lady Molly's |
Maurice Cranston Life Of John Locke |
1956 |
Rose Macauley The Towers Of Trebizond |
St John Greer Ervine George Bernard Shaw |
1955 |
Ivy Compton-Burnett Mother And Son |
R. W. Ketton-Cremer Thomas Gray |
1954 |
C. P. Snow The New Men and The Masters in sequence |
Keith Feiling Warren Hastings |
1953 |
Margaret Kennedy Troy Chimneys |
Carola Oman Sir John Moore |
1952 |
Evelyn Waugh Men At Arms |
G. M. Young Stanley Baldwin |
1951 |
W. C. Chapman-Mortimer Father Goose |
Noel G. Annan Leslie Stephen |
1950 |
Robert Henriquez Along The Valley |
Mrs Cecil Woodham-Smith Florence Nightingale |
1949 |
Emma Smith The Far Cry |
John Connell W. E. Henley |
1948 |
Graham Greene The Heart Of The Matter |
Percy A. Scholes The Great Dr Burney |
1947 |
L. P. Hartley Eustace And Hilda |
Rev. C. C. E. Raven English Naturalists From Neckham To Ray |
1946 |
G. Oliver Onions Poor Man's Tapestry |
R. Aldington Wellington |
1945 |
L. A. G. Strong Travellers |
D. S. MacColl Philip Wilson Steer |
1944 |
Forrest Reid Young Tom |
C. V. Wedgwood William The Silent |
1943 |
Mary Lavin Tales From Bectine Bridge |
G. G. Coulton Fourscore Years |
1942 |
Arthur Whaley Monkey By Wu Ch'eng-en |
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria's Private Secretary |
1941 |
Joyce Cary A House Of Children |
John Gore King George V |
1940 |
Charles Morgan The Voyage |
Hilda F. M. Prescott Spanish Tudor |
1939 |
Aldous Huxley After Many A Summer Dies The Swan |
David C. Douglas English Scholars |
1938 |
C. S. Forester A Ship Of The Line and Flying Colours |
Sir Edmund Chambers Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
1937 |
Neil M. Gunn Highland River |
Lord Eustace Percy John Knox |
1936 |
Winifred Holtby South Riding |
Edward Sackville West A Flame In Sunlight: The Life And Work Of Thomas de Quincey |
1935 |
L. H. Myers The Root And The Flower |
R. W. Chambers Thomas More |
1934 |
Robert Graves I, Claudius and Claudius The God |
J. E. Neale Queen Elizabeth |
1933 |
A. G. Macdonell England, Their England |
Violet Clifton The Book Of Talbot |
1932 |
Helen Simpson Boomerang |
Stephen Gwynn The Life Of Mary Kingsley |
1931 |
Kate O'Brien Without My Cloak |
J. Y. R. Greig David Hume |
1930 |
E. H. Young Miss Mole |
Francis Yeats Brown Lives Of A Bengal Lancer |
1929 |
J. B. Priestley The Good Companions |
Lord David Cecil The Stricken Deer: Or The Life Of Cowper |
1928 |
Siegfried Sassoon Memoirs Of A Fox-Hunting Man |
John Buchan Montrose |
1927 |
Francis Brett Young Portrait Of Clare |
H. A. L. Fisher James Bryce, Viscount Bryce Of Dechmont, O.M. |
1926 |
Radclyffe Hall Adam's Breed |
Rev. Dr H. B. Workman John Wyclif: A Study Of The English Medieval Church |
1925 |
Liam O'Flaherty The Informer |
Geoffrey Scott The Portrait Of Zelide |
1924 |
E. M. Forster A Passage To India |
Rev. William Wilson The House Of Airlie |
1923 |
Arnold Bennett Riceyman Steps |
Sir Ronald Ross Memoirs, Etc |
1922 |
David Garnett Lady Into Fox |
Percy Lubbock Earlham |
1921 |
Walter de la Mare Memoirs Of A Midget |
Lytton Strachey Queen Victoria |
1920 |
D. H. Lawrence The Lost Girl |
G. M. Trevelyan Lord Grey Of The Reform Bill |
1919 |
Hugh Walpole The Secret City |
H. Festing Jones Samuel Butler, Author Of Erewhon (1835-1902) - A Memoir |
