James Tait Black Memorial Prize

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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. 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. The original endowment is now supplemented by the University and, as a consequence, the total prize fund rose from £6,000 to £20,000 for the 2005 awards ^[1]. This increase made the two annual prizes, one for fiction and the other for biography, the largest literary prizes on offer in Scotland^[2]. The University is advised in relation to the development and administration of the Prize by a small committee. Current members featured elsewhere in Wikipedia include Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith and James Naughtie.

Contents 1 Eligibility 2 List of Winners 2.1 Fiction Awards 2.2 Biography Awards 3 External links 4 Notes

[edit] Eligibility

Only those works of fiction and biographies written in English and first published in Britain in the 12 month period prior to the submission date are eligible for the award. Both prizes may go to the same author, but neither prize can be awarded to the same author on more than one occasion.

[edit] List of Winners

[edit] Fiction Awards

• 1919 - Hugh Walpole, The Secret City
• 1920 - D. H. Lawrence, The Lost Girl
• 1921 - Walter de la Mare, Memoirs of a Midget
• 1922 - David Garnett, Lady into Fox
• 1923 - Arnold Bennett, Riceyman Steps
• 1924 - E. M. Forster, A Passage to India
• 1925 - Liam O'Flaherty, The Informer
• 1926 - Radclyffe Hall, Adam's Breed
• 1927 - Francis Brett Young, Portrait of Clare
• 1928 - Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man
• 1929 - J. B. Priestley, The Good Companions
• 1930 - E. H. Young, Miss Mole
• 1931 - Kate O'Brien, Without My Cloak
• 1932 - Helen de Guerry Simpson, Boomerang
• 1933 - A. G. Macdonell, England, Their England
• 1934 - Robert Graves, I, Claudius and Claudius the God
• 1935 - L. H. Myers, The Root and the Flower
• 1936 - Winifred Holtby, South Riding
• 1937 - Neil M. Gunn, Highland River
• 1938 - C. S. Forester, A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours
• 1939 - Aldous Huxley After Many a Summer Dies the Swan
• 1940 - Charles Morgan, The Voyage
• 1941 - Joyce Cary, A House of Children
• 1942 - Arthur Waley, Translation of Monkey by Wu Cheng'en
• 1943 - Mary Lavin, Tales from Bective Bridge
• 1944 - Forrest Reid, Young Tom
• 1945 - L. A. G. Strong, Travellers
• 1946 - Oliver Onions, Poor Man's Tapestry
• 1947 - L. P. Hartley, Eustace and Hilda
• 1948 - Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
• 1949 - Emma Smith, The Far Cry
• 1950 - Robert Henriques, Through the Valley
• 1951 - Chapman Mortimer, Father Goose
• 1952 - Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms
• 1953 - Margaret Kennedy, Troy Chimneys
• 1954 - C. P. Snow, The New Men and The Masters
• 1955 - Ivy Compton-Burnett, Mother and Son
• 1956 - Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond
• 1957 - Anthony Powell, At Lady Molly's
• 1958 - Angus Wilson, The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot
• 1959 - Morris West, The Devil's Advocate
• 1960 - Rex Warner , Imperial Caesar
• 1961 - Jennifer Dawson, The Ha-Ha
• 1962 - Ronald Hardy, Act of Destruction
• 1963 - Gerda Charles, A Slanting Light
• 1964 - Frank Tuohy, The Ice Saints
• 1965 - Muriel Spark, The Mandelbaum Gate
• 1966 - Christine Brooke-Rose, Such, and Aidan Higgins, Langrishe, Go Down
• 1967 - Margaret Drabble, Jerusalem The Golden
• 1968 - Maggie Ross, The Gasteropod
• 1969 - Elizabeth Bowen, Eva Trout
• 1970 - Lily Powell, The Bird of Paradise
• 1971 - Nadine Gordimer, A Guest of Honour
• 1972 - John Berger, G
• 1973 - Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince
• 1974 - Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, or the Prince of Darkness
• 1975 - Brian Moore, The Great Victorian Collection
• 1976 - John Banville, Doctor Copernicus
• 1977 - John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy
• 1978 - Maurice Gee, Plumb
• 1979 - William Golding, Darkness Visible
• 1980 - J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
• 1981 - Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, and Paul Theroux, The Mosquito Coast
• 1982 - Bruce Chatwin, On The Black Hill
• 1983 - Jonathan Keates, Allegro Postillions
• 1984 - J. G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun, and Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus
• 1985 - Robert Edric, Winter Garden
• 1986 - Jenny Joseph, Persephone
• 1987 - George Mackay Brown, The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories
• 1988 - Piers Paul Read, A Season in the West
• 1989 - James Kelman, A Disaffection
• 1990 - William Boyd, Brazzaville Beach
• 1991 - Iain Sinclair, Downriver
• 1992 - Rose Tremain, Sacred Country
• 1993 - Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River
• 1994 - Alan Hollinghurst, The Folding Star
• 1995 - Christopher Priest, The Prestige
• 1996 - Graham Swift, Last Orders, and Alice Thompson, Justine
• 1997 - Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain
• 1998 - Beryl Bainbridge, Master Georgie
• 1999 - Timothy Mo, Renegade, or Halo2
• 2000 - Zadie Smith, White Teeth
• 2001 - Sid Smith, Something Like a House
• 2002 - Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
• 2003 - Andrew O'Hagan, Personality
• 2004 - David Peace, GB84
• 2005 - Ian McEwan, Saturday

[edit] Biography Awards

• 1919 - Henry Festing Jones, Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon (1835-1902) - A Memoir
• 1920 - G. M. Trevelyan, Lord Grey of the Reform Bill
• 1921 - Lytton Strachey, Queen Victoria
• 1922 - Percy Lubbock, Earlham
• 1923 - Sir Ronald Ross, Memoirs, Etc.
• 1924 - Rev. William Wilson, The House of Airlie
• 1925 - Geoffrey Scott, The Portrait of Zelide
• 1926 - Reverend Dr H. B. Workman, John Wyclif: A Study of the English Medieval Church
• 1927 - H. A. L. Fisher, James Bryce, Viscount Bryce of Dechmont, O.M.
• 1928 - John Buchan, Montrose
• 1929 - Lord David Cecil, The Stricken Deer: or The Life of Cowper
• 1930 - Francis Yeats-Brown, Lives of a Bengal Lancer
• 1931 - J. Y. R. Greig, David Hume
• 1932 - Stephen Gwynn, The Life of Mary Kingsley
• 1933 - Violet Clifton, The Book of Talbot
• 1934 - J. E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth
• 1935 - R. W. (Raymond Wilson) Chambers, Thomas More
• 1936 - Edward Sackville West, A Flame in Sunlight: The Life and Work of Thomas de Quincey
• 1937 - Lord Eustace Percy, John Knox
• 1938 - Sir Edmund Chambers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• 1939 - David C. Douglas, English Scholars
• 1940 - Hilda F. M. Prescott, Spanish Tudor: Mary I of England
• 1941 - John Gore, King George V
• 1942 - Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria's Private Secretary
• 1943 - G. G. Coulton, Fourscore Years
• 1944 - C. V. Wedgwood, William the Silent
• 1945 - D. S. MacColl, Philip Wilson Steer
• 1946 - Richard Aldington, Wellington
• 1947 - Rev. C. C. E. Raven, English Naturalists from Neckham to Ray
• 1948 - Percy A. Scholes, The Great Dr Burney
• 1949 - John Connell, W. E. Henley
• 1950 - Cecil Woodham-Smith, Florence Nightingale
• 1951 - Noel Annan, Leslie Stephen
• 1952 - G. M. Young, Stanley Baldwin
• 1953 - Carola Oman, Sir John Moore
• 1954 - Keith Feiling, Warren Hastings
• 1955 - R. W. Ketton-Cremer, Thomas Gray
• 1956 - St John Greer Ervine, George Bernard Shaw
• 1957 - Maurice Cranston, Life of John Locke
• 1958 - Joyce Hemlow, The History of Fanny Burney
• 1959 - Christopher Hassall, Edward Marsh
• 1960 - Canon Adam Fox, The Life of Dean Inge
• 1961 - M. K. Ashby, Joseph Ashby of Tysoe
• 1962 - Meriol Trevor, Newman: The Pillar and the Cloud and Newman: Light in Winter
• 1963 - Georgina Battiscombe, John Keble: A Study in Limitations
• 1964 - Elizabeth Longford, Victoria R.I.
• 1965 - Mary Moorman, William Wordsworth: The Later Years 1803-1850
• 1966 - Geoffrey Keynes, The Life of William Harvey
• 1967 - Winifred Gérin, Charlotte Brontë: The Evolution of Genius
• 1968 - Gordon Haight, George Eliot
• 1969 - Antonia Fraser, Mary, Queen of Scots
• 1970 - Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston
• 1971 - Julia Namier, Lewis Namier
• 1972 - Quentin Bell, Virginia Woolf
• 1973 - Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great
• 1974 - John Wain, Samuel Johnson
• 1975 - Karl Miller, Cockburn's Millennium
• 1976 - Ronald Hingley, A New Life of Chekhov
• 1977 - George Painter, Chateaubriand: Volume 1 - The Longed-For Tempests
• 1978 - Robert Gittings, The Older Hardy
• 1979 - Brian Finney, Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography
• 1980 - Robert B. Martin, Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart
• 1981 - Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell: Unicorn Among Lions
• 1982 - Richard Ellmann, James Joyce
• 1983 - Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years
• 1984 - Lyndall Gordon, Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life
• 1985 - David Nokes, Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed
• 1986 - D. Felicitas Corrigan, Helen Waddell
• 1987 - Ruth Dudley Edwards, Victor Gollancz: A Biography
• 1988 - Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein, A Life: Young Ludwig (1889-1921)
• 1989 - Ian Gibson, Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life
• 1990 - Claire Tomalin, The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
• 1991 - Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin
• 1992 - Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe
• 1993 - Richard Holmes, Dr Johnson and Mr Savage
• 1994 - Doris Lessing, Under My Skin
• 1995 - Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with the Truth
• 1996 - Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life
• 1997 - R. F. Foster, W. B. Yeats: A Life, Volume 1 - The Apprentice Mage 1965-1914
• 1998 - Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More
• 1999 - Kathryn Hughes, George Eliot: The Last Victorian
• 2000 - Martin Amis, Experience
• 2001 - Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Volume 3 - Fighting for Britain 1937-1946
• 2002 - Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future 1730-1810
• 2003 - Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Volume 2 - The Power of Place
• 2004 - Jonathan Bate, John Clare: A Biography
• 2005 - Sue Prideaux, Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream

[edit] External links

• James Tait Black Prizes at the homepage of Edinburgh University's English Department
• Most honored books of the James Tait Black Prize shortlists
• James Tait Black feature on the BBC Radio 4's 'Open Book' (includes audio link)

[edit] Notes

1. ^ "University boosts James Tait Black Prizes", University of Edinburgh, November 28, 2005.
2. ^ "Ali Smith hits the shortlists again", The Guardian, May 2, 2006.