| James Tait Black Memorial Prizes | |
| Awarded For: | Awarded for literature written in the English language |
The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards.[1] Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, United Kingdom, the prizes were founded in 1919 by Janet Coats Black in memory of her late husband,[2] James Tait Black, a partner in the publishing house of A & C Black Ltd. Prizes are awarded in three categories: Fiction, Biography and Drama (since 2013).
From its inception, the James Tait Black prize was organised without overt publicity. There was a lack of press and publisher attention, initially at least, because Edinburgh was distant from the literary centres of the country. The decision about the award was made by the Regius Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh.[1]
Four winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature received the James Tait Black earlier in their careers: William Golding, Nadine Gordimer and J. M. Coetzee each collected the James Tait Black for fiction, whilst Doris Lessing took the prize for biography. In addition to these literary Nobels, Sir Ronald Ross, whose 1923 autobiography Memoirs, Etc. received the biography prize, was already a Nobel laureate, having been awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on malaria.[3]
In 2012, a third prize category was announced for Drama, with the first winner of this award announced in August 2013. The drama prize was paused after the 2019 award, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the university states that "submissions may re-open in January 2025".[4]
The winners are chosen by the Professor of English Literature at the university, who is assisted by postgraduate students in the shortlisting phase, a structure which is seen to lend the prizes a considerable gravitas. At the award of the 2006 prizes, at which Cormac McCarthy was a winner, McCarthy's publisher commented positively on the selection process noting that, in the absence of a sponsor and literary or media figures amongst the judging panel, the decision is made by "students and professors, whose only real agenda can be great books and great writing".[5] The original endowment is now supplemented by the university and, as a consequence, the total prize fund rose from 2005 awards.[6] Each of the three annual prizes—one for fiction, one for biography, and one for drama—is worth £10,000.[7] [8] The university is advised in relation to the development and administration of the Prize by a small committee which includes Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith and James Naughtie amongst its members. In August 2007 the prize ceremony was held at the Edinburgh International Book Festival for the first time.[9]
For the book prizes works of fiction and biographies must be written in English. The nationality of the author does not matter, but submissions must be first published (or co-published) in Britain during the calendar year of the award. Any given author can only win each prize once. However, he or she can win both prizes at the same time.
For the drama category, the work must be originally written in either English, Gaelic or Welsh, be produced first during the previous calendar year, have a playing time over one hour, and have been performed no fewer than seven times by a professional theatre company.[10] [11]
Source.[12]
| Year | Fiction Award | Biography Award | Drama Award | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1919 | Hugh Walpole, The Secret City | Henry Festing Jones, Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon (1835–1902) – A Memoir (Samuel Butler) | ||
| 1920 | D. H. Lawrence, The Lost Girl | G. M. Trevelyan, Lord Grey of the Reform Bill (Earl Grey) | ||
| 1921 | Walter de la Mare, Memoirs of a Midget | Lytton Strachey, Queen Victoria (Queen Victoria) | ||
| 1922 | David Garnett, Lady into Fox | Percy Lubbock, Earlham (autobiography) | ||
| 1923 | Arnold Bennett, Riceyman Steps | Ronald Ross, Memoirs, Etc. (autobiography) | ||
| 1924 | E. M. Forster, A Passage to India | William Wilson, The House of Airlie (The Earls of Airlie) | ||
| 1925 | Liam O'Flaherty, The Informer | Geoffrey Scott, The Portrait of Zelide (Isabelle de Charrière) | ||
| 1926 | Radclyffe Hall, Adam's Breed | Reverend Dr H. B. Workman, John Wyclif: A Study of the English Medieval Church (John Wyclif) | ||
| 1927 | Francis Brett Young, Portrait of Clare | H. A. L. Fisher, James Bryce, Viscount Bryce of Dechmont, O.M. (James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce) | ||
| 1928 | Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man | John Buchan, Montrose (James Graham) | ||
| 1929 | J. B. Priestley, The Good Companions | Lord David Cecil, The Stricken Deer: or The Life of Cowper (William Cowper) | ||
| 1930 | E. H. Young, Miss Mole | Francis Yeats-Brown, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (autobiography) | ||
| 1931 | Kate O'Brien, Without My Cloak | J. Y. T. Greig, David Hume (David Hume) | ||
| 1932 | Helen de Guerry Simpson, Boomerang | Stephen Gwynn, The Life of Mary Kingsley (Mary Kingsley) | ||
| 1933 | A. G. Macdonell, England, Their England | Violet Clifton, The Book of Talbot (John Talbot Clifton) | ||
| 1934 | Robert Graves, I, Claudius and Claudius the God | J. E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth I of England) | ||
| 1935 | L. H. Myers, The Root and the Flower | Raymond Wilson Chambers, Thomas More (Thomas More) | ||
| 1936 | Winifred Holtby, South Riding | Edward Sackville West, A Flame in Sunlight: The Life and Work of Thomas de Quincey (Thomas de Quincey) | ||
| 1937 | Neil M. Gunn, Highland River | Lord Eustace Percy, John Knox (John Knox) | ||
| 1938 | C. S. Forester, A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours | Sir Edmund Chambers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) | ||
| 1939 | Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer | David C. Douglas, English Scholars | ||
| 1940 | Charles Morgan, The Voyage | Hilda F. M. Prescott, Spanish Tudor: Mary I of England (Mary I of England) | ||
| 1941 | Joyce Cary, A House of Children | John Gore, King George V (George V) | ||
| 1942 | Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria's Private Secretary (Henry Ponsonby) | |||
| 1943 | Mary Lavin, Tales from Bective Bridge | G. G. Coulton, Fourscore Years (autobiography) | ||
| 1944 | Forrest Reid, Young Tom | C. V. Wedgwood, William the Silent (William the Silent) | ||
| 1945 | L. A. G. Strong, Travellers | D. S. MacColl, Philip Wilson Steer (Philip Wilson Steer) | ||
| 1946 | Oliver Onions, Poor Man's Tapestry | Richard Aldington, A Life of Wellington: The Duke (Arthur Wellesley) | ||
| 1947 | L. P. Hartley, Eustace and Hilda | Charles E. Raven, English Naturalists from Neckam to Ray (Alexander Neckam and John Ray) | ||
| 1948 | Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter | Percy A. Scholes, The Great Dr. Burney (Charles Burney) | ||
| 1949 | Emma Smith, The Far Cry | John Connell, W. E. Henley (W. E. Henley) | ||
| 1950 | Robert Henriques, Through the Valley | Cecil Woodham-Smith, Florence Nightingale (Florence Nightingale) | ||
| 1951 | Chapman Mortimer, Father Goose | Noel Annan, Leslie Stephen (Leslie Stephen) | ||
| 1952 | Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms | G. M. Young, Stanley Baldwin (Stanley Baldwin) | ||
| 1953 | Margaret Kennedy, Troy Chimneys | Carola Oman, Sir John Moore (John Moore) | ||
| 1954 | C. P. Snow, The New Men and The Masters | Keith Feiling, Warren Hastings (Warren Hastings) | ||
| 1955 | Ivy Compton-Burnett, Mother and Son | R. W. Ketton-Cremer, Thomas Gray (Thomas Gray) | ||
| 1956 | Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond | St John Greer Ervine, George Bernard Shaw (George Bernard Shaw) | ||
| 1957 | Anthony Powell, At Lady Molly's | Maurice Cranston, Life of John Locke (John Locke) | ||
| 1958 | Angus Wilson, The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot | Joyce Hemlow, The History of Fanny Burney (Fanny Burney) | ||
| 1959 | Morris West, The Devil's Advocate | Christopher Hassall, Edward Marsh (Edward Marsh) | ||
| 1960 | Rex Warner, Imperial Caesar | Canon Adam Fox, The Life of Dean Inge (William Ralph Inge) | ||
| 1961 | Jennifer Dawson, The Ha-Ha | M. K. Ashby, Joseph Ashby of Tysoe (Joseph Ashby) | ||
| 1962 | Ronald Hardy, Act of Destruction | Meriol Trevor, Newman: The Pillar and the Cloud and Newman: Light in Winter (John Henry Newman) | ||
| 1963 | Gerda Charles, A Slanting Light | Georgina Battiscombe, John Keble: A Study in Limitations (John Keble) | ||
| 1964 | Frank Tuohy, The Ice Saints | Elizabeth Longford, Victoria R.I. (Queen Victoria) | ||
| 1965 | Muriel Spark, The Mandelbaum Gate | Mary Caroline Moorman, William Wordsworth: The Later Years 1803–1850 (William Wordsworth) | ||
| 1966 | Christine Brooke-Rose, Such Aidan Higgins, Langrishe, Go Down | Geoffrey Keynes, The Life of William Harvey (William Harvey) | ||
| 1967 | Margaret Drabble, Jerusalem the Golden | Winifred Gérin, Charlotte Brontë: The Evolution of Genius (Charlotte Brontë) | ||
| 1968 | Maggie Ross, The Gasteropod | Gordon Haight, George Eliot (George Eliot) | ||
| 1969 | Elizabeth Bowen, Eva Trout | Antonia Fraser, Mary, Queen of Scots (Mary, Queen of Scots) | ||
| 1970 | Lily Powell, The Bird of Paradise | Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston) | ||
| 1971 | Nadine Gordimer, A Guest of Honour | Julia Namier, Lewis Namier (Lewis Namier) | ||
| 1972 | John Berger, G | Quentin Bell, Virginia Woolf (Virginia Woolf) | ||
| 1973 | Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince | Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (Alexander the Great) | ||
| 1974 | Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur: or, The Prince of Darkness | John Wain, Samuel Johnson (Samuel Johnson) | ||
| 1975 | Brian Moore, The Great Victorian Collection | Karl Miller, Cockburn's Millennium (Henry Cockburn) | ||
| 1976 | John Banville, Doctor Copernicus | Ronald Hingley, A New Life of Chekhov (Anton Chekhov) | ||
| 1977 | John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy | George Painter, Chateaubriand: Volume 1 – The Longed-For Tempests (François-René de Chateaubriand) | ||
| 1978 | Maurice Gee, Plumb | Robert Gittings, The Older Hardy (Thomas Hardy) | ||
| 1979 | William Golding, Darkness Visible | Brian Finney, Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography (Christopher Isherwood) | ||
| 1980 | J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians | Robert B. Martin, Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart (Alfred Tennyson) | ||
| 1981 | Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children Paul Theroux, The Mosquito Coast | Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell: Unicorn Among Lions (Edith Sitwell) | ||
| 1982 | Bruce Chatwin, On the Black Hill | Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (James Joyce) | ||
| 1983 | Jonathan Keates, Allegro Postillions | Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years (Franz Liszt) | ||
| 1984 | J. G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus | Lyndall Gordon, Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life (Virginia Woolf) | ||
| 1985 | Robert Edric, Winter Garden | David Nokes, Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed (Jonathan Swift) | ||
| 1986 | Jenny Joseph, Persephone | Dame Felicitas Corrigan, Helen Waddell (Helen Waddell) | ||
| 1987 | George Mackay Brown, The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories | Ruth Dudley Edwards, Victor Gollancz: A Biography (Victor Gollancz) | ||
| 1988 | Piers Paul Read, A Season in the West | Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein, A Life: Young Ludwig (1889–1921) (Ludwig Wittgenstein) | ||
| 1989 | James Kelman, A Disaffection | Ian Gibson, Federico García Lorca: A Life (Federico García Lorca) | ||
| 1990 | William Boyd, Brazzaville Beach | Claire Tomalin, The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens (Ellen Ternan and Charles Dickens) | ||
| 1991 | Iain Sinclair, Downriver | Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin (Charles Darwin) | ||
| 1992 | Rose Tremain, Sacred Country | Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (Christopher Marlowe) | ||
| 1993 | Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River | Richard Holmes, Dr Johnson and Mr Savage (Samuel Johnson, Richard Savage) | ||
| 1994 | Alan Hollinghurst, The Folding Star | Doris Lessing, Under My Skin (autobiography) | ||
| 1995 | Christopher Priest, The Prestige | Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (Albert Speer) | ||
| 1996 | Graham Swift, Last Orders Alice Thompson, Justine | Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (Thomas Cranmer) | ||
| 1997 | Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain | R. F. Foster, W. B. Yeats: A Life, Volume 1 – The Apprentice Mage 1865–1914 (W. B. Yeats) | ||
| 1998 | Beryl Bainbridge, Master Georgie | Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More (Thomas More) | ||
| 1999 | Timothy Mo, Renegade, or Halo2 | Kathryn Hughes, George Eliot: The Last Victorian (George Eliot) | ||
| 2000 | Zadie Smith, White Teeth | Martin Amis, Experience (autobiography) | ||
| 2001 | Sid Smith, Something Like a House | Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Volume 3 – Fighting for Britain 1937–1946 (John Maynard Keynes) | ||
| 2002 | Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections | Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future 1730–1810 (Lunar Society of Birmingham) | ||
| 2003 | Andrew O'Hagan, Personality | Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Volume 2 – The Power of Place (Charles Darwin) | ||
| 2004 | David Peace, GB84 | Jonathan Bate, John Clare: A Biography (John Clare) | ||
| 2005 | Ian McEwan, Saturday[13] | Sue Prideaux, Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream (Edvard Munch) | ||
| 2006 | Cormac McCarthy, The Road | Byron Rogers, The Man Who Went Into the West: The Life of R. S. Thomas (R. S. Thomas) | ||
| 2007 | Rosalind Belben, Our Horses in Egypt[14] | Rosemary Hill, God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain (Augustus Pugin) | ||
| 2008 | Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture | Michael Holroyd, A Strange Eventful History (The families of Ellen Terry and Henry Irving)[15] | ||
| 2009 | A. S. Byatt, The Children's Book[16] | John Carey, William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies (William Golding) | ||
| 2010 | Tatjana Soli, The Lotus Eaters | Hilary Spurling, Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China (Pearl Buck)[17] | ||
| 2011 | Padgett Powell, You and I[18] | Fiona MacCarthy, The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination (Edward Burne-Jones) | ||
| 2012 | Alan Warner, The Deadman's Pedal | Tanya Harrod, The Last Sane Man: Michael Cardew, Modern Pots, Colonialism and the Counterculture (Michael Cardew) | Tim Price, The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning | |
| 2013 | Jim Crace, Harvest | Hermione Lee, Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life (Penelope Fitzgerald)[19] | Rory Mullarkey, Cannibals[20] | |
| 2014 | Zia Haider Rahman, In the Light of What We Know[21] | Richard Benson, The Valley: A Hundred Years in the Life of a Family | Gordon Dahlquist, Tomorrow Come Today[22] | |
| 2015 | Benjamin Markovits, You Don't Have to Live Like This[23] | James Shapiro, 1606: Shakespeare and the Year of Lear (William Shakespeare) | Gary Owen, Iphigenia in Splott[24] | |
| 2016 | Eimear McBride, The Lesser Bohemians[25] | Laura Cumming, The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez (Diego Velázquez) | David Ireland, Cyprus Avenue[26] | |
| 2017 | Eley Williams, Attrib. and other stories[27] | Craig Brown, Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret (Princess Margaret) | Tanika Gupta, Lions and Tigers[28] | |
| 2018 | Olivia Laing, Crudo[29] | Lindsey Hilsum, In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin (Marie Colvin) | Clare Barron, Dance Nation[30] | |
| 2019 | Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport[31] | George Szirtes, The Photographer at Sixteen (autobiography) | Yasmin Joseph, J'Ouvert[32] | |
| 2020 | Shola von Reinhold, Lote[33] | Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat (autobiography) | N/A | |
| 2021 | Keith Ridgway, A Shock[34] | Amit Chaudhuri, Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music | N/A | |
| 2022 | Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead[35] | Daryl Pinckney, Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan | N/A | |
| 2023 | Alexis Wright, Praiseworthy[36] | Iman Mersal, Traces of Enayat (translated by Robin Moger)Ian Penman, Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors |
In 2012, a special prize was given called the 'Best of the James Tait Black' (in addition to the normal prize for that year).[37] [38] The award celebrated the fiction winners over the past 93 years, as part of the 250th anniversary of the study of English Literature at the university. A shortlist of six previous winners competed for the title of Best. A judging panel of celebrity alumni and writers decided on the winner, which was announced on 6 December 2012 as Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus.