James Tait Black Memorial Prizes. Winners. Shortlists. News.

About the Award

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. They are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, part of the United Kingdom, the prizes were founded by Mrs Janet Coutts Black in memory of her late husband, James Tait Black, a partner in the publishing house of A & C Black Ltd. The winners are chosen by the Professor of English Literature at the University, who is assisted by PhD students in the shortlisting phase.

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.

Britain's oldest literary prize winners announced

24th August- THE winners of Britain's oldest literary prizes have been announced at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

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.

The prizes, worth £10,000, are awarded annually by Edinburgh University for the best work of fiction and the best biography published during the previous year.

Rosemary Hill said: "I first heard of this award not as a writer but as a reader, where I found it set like a seal on everything I most admired in biography. I am thrilled and very honoured to have won it."

Britain's Oldest Literary Award 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 by Rosalind Belben (Vintage), The Devil's Footprints by John Burnside (right)(Vintage), The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Penguin), A Far Country by Daniel Mason (Picador) and Salvage by Gee Williams (Alcemi).

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 by Michael Gray (Bloomsbury), God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain by Rosemary Hill (Allen Lane), Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee (Vintage), Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Phoenix) and John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand by Richard Reeves (Atlantic).

The broadcaster James Naughtie will announce the winners at a ceremony at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August. Naughtie is one of four honorary Edinburgh graduates on the advisory committee for the awards, along with Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall-Smith, and the Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Catherine Lockerbie.

Manager of the awards, Professor Colin Nicholson of the University of Edinburgh, said: "This year's short-listed novels combine cracking story-telling with exceptional writing skills, as do the nominated biographies, which additionally offer fascinating insights into the lives of some extraordinary people."

The awards were founded in 1919 by Janet Coats, the widow of publisher James Tait Black, to commemorate her husband's love of literature. Past winners include DH Lawrence, Graham Greene and Salman Rushdie.

PAST WINNERS 1919 TO 2006

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