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James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography

University of Edinburgh

One of the two biography/fiction categories of the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes, the UK's oldest literary awards, recognizing the best biography published each year as judged by scholars and postgraduate students at the University of Edinburgh.

Latest winner · 2025

2003

  1. Charles Darwin: Volume 2 – The Power of Place

    Janet Browne

    Won

2002

  1. The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future 1730–1810

    Jenny Uglow

    Won

2001

  1. John Maynard Keynes: Volume 3 – Fighting for Britain 1937–1946

    Robert Skidelsky

    Won

2000

  1. Experience

    Martin Amis

    Won

1997

  1. W. B. Yeats: A Life, Volume 1 – The Apprentice Mage 1865–1914

    R. F. Foster

    Won

1996

  1. Thomas Cranmer: A Life

    Diarmaid MacCulloch

    Won

1989

  1. Federico García Lorca: A Life

    Ian Gibson

    Won

1988

  1. Wittgenstein, A Life: Young Ludwig (1889–1921)

    Brian McGuinness

    Won

1987

  1. Victor Gollancz: A Biography

    Ruth Dudley Edwards

    Won

1986

  1. Helen Waddell

    Dame Felicitas Corrigan

    Won

1979

  1. Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography

    Brian Finney

    Won

1978

  1. The Older Hardy

    Robert Gittings

    Won

1977

  1. Chateaubriand: Volume 1 – The Longed-For Tempests

    George Painter

    Won

1976

  1. A New Life of Chekhov

    Ronald Hingley

    Won

1975

  1. Cockburn's Millennium

    Karl Miller

    Won

1974

  1. Samuel Johnson

    John Wain

    Won

1971

  1. Lewis Namier

    Julia Namier

    Won

1970

  1. Lord Palmerston

    Jasper Ridley

    Won

1967

  1. Charlotte Brontë: The Evolution of Genius

    Winifred Gérin

    Won

1966

  1. The Life of William Harvey

    Geoffrey Keynes

    Won

1965

  1. William Wordsworth: The Later Years 1803–1850

    Mary Caroline Moorman

    Won

1964

  1. Victoria R.I.

    Elizabeth Longford

    Won

1963

  1. John Keble: A Study in Limitations

    Georgina Battiscombe

    Won

1962

  1. Newman: The Pillar and the Cloud and Newman: Light in Winter

    Meriol Trevor

    Won

1961

  1. Joseph Ashby of Tysoe

    M. K. Ashby

    Won

1960

  1. The Life of Dean Inge

    Canon Adam Fox

    Won

1957

  1. Life of John Locke

    Maurice Cranston

    Won

1956

  1. George Bernard Shaw

    St John Greer Ervine

    Won

1955

  1. Thomas Gray

    R. W. Ketton-Cremer

    Won

1954

  1. Warren Hastings

    Keith Feiling

    Won

1949

  1. W. E. Henley

    John Connell

    Won

1948

  1. The Great Dr. Burney

    Percy A. Scholes

    Won

1947

  1. English Naturalists from Neckam to Ray

    Charles E. Raven

    Won

1946

  1. A Life of Wellington: The Duke

    Richard Aldington

    Won

1945

  1. Philip Wilson Steer

    D. S. MacColl

    Won

1944

  1. William the Silent

    C. V. Wedgwood

    Won

1943

  1. Fourscore Years

    G. G. Coulton

    Won

1942

  1. Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria's Private Secretary

    Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

    Won

1939

  1. English Scholars

    David C. Douglas

    Won

1938

  1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

    Sir Edmund Chambers

    Won

1935

  1. Thomas More

    Raymond Wilson Chambers

    Won

1934

  1. Queen Elizabeth

    J. E. Neale

    Won

1933

  1. The Book of Talbot

    Violet Clifton

    Won

1932

  1. The Life of Mary Kingsley

    Stephen Gwynn

    Won

1931

  1. David Hume

    J. Y. T. Greig

    Won

1930

  1. The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

    Francis Yeats-Brown

    Won

1929

  1. The Stricken Deer: or The Life of Cowper

    Lord David Cecil

    Won

1928

  1. Montrose

    John Buchan

    Won

1927

  1. James Bryce, Viscount Bryce of Dechmont, O.M.

    H. A. L. Fisher

    Won

1926

  1. John Wyclif: A Study of the English Medieval Church

    Reverend Dr H. B. Workman

    Won

1923

  1. Memoirs, Etc.

    Ronald Ross

    Won

1922

  1. Earlham

    Percy Lubbock

    Won

Frequently asked questions

Who won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography in 2025?
“The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe” by Marlene L. Daut won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography in 2025.
Who are the most recent James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography winners?
2025: “The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe” by Marlene L. Daut; 2024: “My Great Arab Melancholy” by Lamia Ziadé; 2023: “Fassbinder: Thousands of Mirrors” by Ian Penman and “Traces of Enayat” by Iman Mersal; 2022: “Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan” by Daryl Pinckney; 2021: “Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music” by Amit Chaudhuri.