The James Tait Black Prizes
The James Tait Black Prizes logo

Biography winners

Winners of the James Tait Black Prize for Biography.

Darryl Pinckney
Darryl Pinckney (2023 winner)

Please note these are listed by year of publication. 

2020-present

2010-2019

Amit Chaudhuri - James Tait Black Biography winner 2022
Amit Chaudhuri (2022 winner)

2000–2009

Doireann Ní Ghríofa - A Ghost in the Throat (Tramp Press) - 2020
Doireann Ní Ghríofa (2021 winner)

1990–1999

  • Kathryn Hughes - George Eliot: The Last Victorian (Fourth Estate) - 1999
  • Peter Ackroyd - The Life of Thomas More (Chatto & Windus) - 1998
  • R.F. Foster - W.B. Yeats: A Life Volume1 - The Apprentice Mage 1965-1914 (Hodder & Stoughton) - 1997
  • Diarmaid MacCulloch - Thomas Cranmer: A Life (Yale) - 1996
  • Gitta Sereny - Albert Speer: His Battle with the Truth (Macmillan) - 1995
  • Doris Lessing - Under My Skin (Harper Collins) - 1994
  • Richard Holmes - Dr Johnson And Mr Savage (Hodder & Stoughton) - 1993
  • Charles Nicoll - The Reckoning: The Murder Of Christopher Marlowe (Jonathan Cape) - 1992
  • Adrian Desmond and James Moore - Darwin (Paladin) - 1991
  • Claire Tomalin - The Invisible Woman: The Story Of Nelly Ternan And Charles Dickens (Viking) - 1990

1980–1989

  • Ian Gibson - Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life (Faber & Faber) - 1989
  • Brian McGuinness - Wittgenstein, A Life: Young Ludwig (1889-1921) (Duckworth) - 1988
  • Ruth Dudley Edwards - Victor Gollancz: A Biography (Victor Gollancz) - 1987
  • D. Felicitas Corrigan - Helen Waddell (Victor Gollancz) - 1986
  • David Nokes - Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed (OUP) - 1985
  • Lyndall Gordon - Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life (OUP) - 1984
  • Alan Walker - Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years (Faber) - 1983
  • Richard Ellmann - James Joyce (OUP) - 1982
  • Victoria Glendinning - Edith Sitwell: Unicorn Among Lions (Weidenfeld) - 1981
  • Robert B. Martin - Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart (OUP) - 1980

1970–1979

  • Brian Finney - Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography (Faber) - 1979
  • Robert Gittings - The Older Hardy (Heinemann Educational) - 1978
  • George Painter - Chateaubriand, Vol.1: The Longed-For Tempests (Chatto & Windus) - 1977
  • Ronald Hingley - A New Life Of Chekhov (OUP) - 1976
  • Karl Miller - Cockburn's Millennium (Duckworth) - 1975
  • John Wain - Samuel Johnson - 1974
  • Robin Lane Fox - Alexander The Great - 1973
  • Quentin Bell - Virginia Woolf - 1972
  • Julia Namier - Lewis Namier - 1971
  • Jasper Ridley - Lord Palmerston - 1970

1960–1969

  • Antonia Fraser - Mary, Queen Of Scots - 1969
  • Gordon S. Haight - George Eliot - 1968
  • Winifred Gérin - Charlotte Brontë, The Evolution Of Genius - 1967
  • Geoffrey Keynes - The Life Of William Harvey - 1966
  • Mary Moorman - William Wordsworth, The Later Years 1803-1850 - 1965
  • Elizabeth Longford - Victoria R.I. - 1964
  • Georgina Battiscome - John Keble: A Study In Limitations - 1963
  • Meriol Trevor - Newman: The Pillar And The Cloud and Newman: Light In Winter - 1962
  • M. K. Ashby - Joseph Ashby Of Tysoe - 1961
  • Canon Adam Fox - The Life Of Dean Inge - 1960

1950–1959

  • Christopher Hassall - Edward Marsh - 1959
  • Joyce Hemlow - The History Of Fanny Burney - 1958
  • Maurice Cranston - Life Of John Locke - 1957
  • St John Greer Ervine - George Bernard Shaw - 1956
  • R. W. Ketton-Cremer - Thomas Gray - 1955
  • Keith Feiling - Warren Hastings - 1954
  • Carola Oman - Sir John Moore - 1953
  • G. M. Young - Stanley Baldwin - 1952
  • Noel G. Annan - Leslie Stephen - 1951
  • Mrs Cecil Woodham-Smith - Florence Nightingale - 1950

1940–1949

  • John Connell - W. E. Henley - 1949
  • Percy A. Scholes - The Great Dr Burney - 1948
  • C. C. E. Raven - English Naturalists From Neckham To Ray - 1947
  • R. Aldington - Wellington - 1946
  • D. S. MacColl - Philip Wilson Steer - 1945
  • C. V. Wedgwood - William The Silent - 1944
  • G. G. Coulton - Fourscore Years - 1943
  • Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria's Private Secretary - 1942
  • John Gore - King George V - 1941
  • Hilda F. M. Prescott - Spanish Tudor - 1940

1930–1939

  • David C. Douglas - English Scholars - 1939
  • Sir Edmund Chambers - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1938
  • Lord Eustace Percy - John Knox - 1937
  • Edward Sackville West - A Flame In Sunlight: The Life And Work Of Thomas de Quincey - 1936
  • R. W. Chambers - Thomas More - 1935
  • J. E. Neale - Queen Elizabeth - 1934
  • Violet Clifton - The Book Of Talbot - 1933
  • Stephen Gwynn - The Life Of Mary Kingsley - 1932
  • J. Y. R. Greig - David Hume - 1931
  • Francis Yeats Brown - Lives Of A Bengal Lancer - 1930

1919–1929

  • Lord David Cecil - The Stricken Deer: Or The Life Of Cowper - 1929
  • John Buchan - Montrose - 1928
  • H. A. L. Fisher - James Bryce, Viscount Bryce Of Dechmont, O.M. - 1927
  • Rev. Dr H. B. Workman - John Wyclif: A Study Of The English Medieval Church - 1926
  • Geoffrey Scott - The Portrait Of Zelide - 1925
  • Rev. William Wilson - The House Of Airlie - 1924
  • Sir Ronald Ross - Memoirs, Etc - 1923
  • Percy Lubbock - Earlham - 1922
  • Lytton Strachey - Queen Victoria - 1921
  • G. M. Trevelyan - Lord Grey Of The Reform Bill - 1920
  • H. Festing Jones - Samuel Butler, Author Of Erewhon (1835-1902) - A Memoir - 1919