James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography

For more information about the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, click here.

2017     Ma'am darling : 99 glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown
2016     The vanishing man : in pursuit of Velazquez by Laura Cumming
2015     1606, William Shakespeare and the year of Lear by James Shapiro
2014     The valley : a hundred years in the life of a Yorkshire family by Richard Benson
2013     Penelope Fitzgerald : a life by Hermione Lee
2012     The last sane man : Michael Cardew, modern pots, colonialism and the counterculture by Tanya Harrod
2011     The last Pre-Raphaelite : Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian imagination by Fiona MacCarthy
2010     Burying the bones : Pearl Buck in China by Hilary Spurling (American edition here)
2009     William Golding : the man who wrote Lord of the flies: a life by John Carey
2008     A strange eventful history : the dramatic lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and their remarkable families by Michael Holroyd
2007     God's architect : Pugin and the building of romantic Britain by Rosemary Hill
2006     The man who went into the west : the life of R. S. Thomas by Byron Rogers
2005     Edvard Munch : behind the scream by Sue Prideaux
2004     John Clare : a biography by Jonathan Bate
2003     Charles Darwin : a biography : volume 2 : the power of place by Janet Browne
2002     The lunar men : the friends who made the future, 1730-1810 by Jennifer S. Uglow
2001     John Maynard Keynes : volume 3 : fighting for freedom, 1937-1946 by Robert Skidelsky
2000     Experience by Martin Amis
1999     George Eliot : the last Victorian by Kathryn Hughes
1998     The life of Thomas More by Peter Ackroyd
1997     W.B. Yeats : a life : volume 1 : The apprentice mage, 1865-1914  by R. F. Foster
1996     Thomas Cranmer : a life by Diarmaid MacCulloch
1995     Albert Speer : his battle with truth by Gitta Sereny
1994     Under my skin by Doris Lessing
1993     Dr. Johnson & Mr. Savage by Richard Holmes
1992     The reckoning : the murder of Christopher Marlowe by Charles Nicholl
1991     Darwin by Adrian Desmond and James Moore
1990     The invisible woman : the story of Nelly Ternan And Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin
1989     Federico Garcia Lorca, a life by Ian Gibson
1988     Wittgenstein, a life : young Ludwig, 1889-1921 by Brian McGuinness
1987     Victor Gollancz : a biography by Ruth Dudley Edwards
1986     Helen Waddell by Felicitas Corrigan, O. S. B.
1985     Jonathan Swift, a hypocrite reversed : a critical biography by David Nokes
1984     Virginia Woolf, a writer's life by Lyndall Gordon
1983     Franz Liszt : volume 1: the virtuoso years, 1811-1847 by Alan Walker
1982     James Joyce by Richard Ellmann
1981     Edith Sitwell, a unicorn among lions by Victoria Glendinning
1980     Tennyson, the unquiet heart by Robert B. Martin
1979     Christopher Isherwood : a critical biography by Brian Finney
1978     The older Hardy by Robert Gittings
1977     Chateaubriand : a biography : volume 1 : the longed-for tempests by George Painter
1976     A new life of Chekhov by Ronald Hingley
1975     Cockburn's millennium by Karl Miller
1974     Samuel Johnson by John Wain
1973     Alexander the Great by Robin Lane Fox
1972     Virginia Woolf; a biography by Quentin Bell
1971     Lewis Namier : a biography by Julia Namier
1970     Lord Palmerston by Jasper Ridley
1969     Mary, Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser
1968     George Eliot by Gordon S. Haight
1967     Charlotte Brontë : the evolution of genius by Winifred Gérin
1966     The life of William Harvey by Geoffrey Keynes
1965     William Wordsworth : the later years, 1803-1850 by Mary Moorman
1964     Victoria R.I. by Elizabeth Longford
1963     John Keble : a study in limitations by Georgina Battiscombe
1962     Newman, the pillar of the cloud and Newman : light in winter by Meriol Trevor
1961     Joseph Ashby of Tysoe, 1859-1919 by Mabel Kathleen Ashby
1960     The life Of Dean Inge by Canon Adam Fox
1959     Edward Marsh by Christopher Hassall
1958     The history Of Fanny Burney by Joyce Hemlow
1957     Life of John Locke by Maurice Cranston
1956     George Bernard Shaw by St. John Greer Ervine
1955     Thomas Gray by R. W. Ketton-Cremer
1954     Warren Hastings by Keith Feiling
1953     Sir John Moore by Carola Oman
1952     Stanley Baldwin by G. M. Young
1951     Leslie Stephen, his thought and character in relation to his time by Noel G. Annan
1950     Florence Nightingale, 1820-1910 by Mrs Cecil Woodham-Smith
1949     W. E. Henley by John Connell
1948     The great Dr. Burney; his life, his travels, his works, his family, and his friends by Percy A. Scholes
1947     English naturalists from Neckam to Ray : a study of the making of the modern world by Charles Earle Raven
1946     Wellington by R. Aldington
1945     Philip Wilson Steer by D. S. MacColl
1944     William the Silent, William of Nassau, prince of Orange, 1533-1584 by C. V. Wedgwood
1943     Fourscore years, an autobiography by George Gordon Coulton
1942     Henry Ponsonby, Queen Victoria's private secretary; his life from his letters by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
1941     King George V : a personal memoir by John Gore
1940     Spanish Tudor by Hilda F. M. Prescott
1939     English Scholars by David C. Douglas (2d rev. ed. (1951) here)
1938     Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a biographical study by Sir Edmund Chambers
1937     John Knox by Lord Eustace Percy
1936     A flame in sunlight; the life and work of Thomas De Quincey by Edward Sackville West
1935     Thomas More by R. W. Chambers
1934     Queen Elizabeth by Sir J. E. Neale
1933     The book of Talbot by Violet Clifton
1932     The life of Mary Kingsley by Stephen Gwynn
1931     David Hume by J. Y. T. Greig
1930     The lives of a Bengal lancer by Francis Yeats-Brown
1929     The stricken deer; or, The life of Cowper by Lord David Cecil
1928     Montrose by John Buchan
1927     James Bryce (Viscount Bryce of Dechmont, O.M.) by H. A. L. Fisher
1926     John Wyclif, a study of the English medieval church by Rev. Dr. Herbert B. Workman
1925     The portrait of Zélide by Geoffrey Scott
1924     The house of Airlie by Rev. William Wilson
1923     Memoirs, with a full account of the great malaria problem and its solution by Sir Ronald Ross
1922     Earlham by Percy Lubbock
1921     Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey
1920     Lord Grey of the Reform bill, being the life of Charles, second earl Grey by G. M. Trevelyan
1919     Samuel Butler, author of Erewhon (1835-1902); a memoir by Henry Festing Jones