Search
2020
​Winner
The Louder I Will Sing by Lee Lawrence

Shortlist
The Man in the Red Coat by Julian Barnes
Dear Life by Rachel Clarke
Ghost Town: A Liverpool Shadow Play by Jeff Young
2019
Winner
The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather

Shortlist
On Chapel Sands: My mother and other missing persons by Laura Cumming
In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum
The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and Their Year of Marvels by Adam Nicolson
Costa Biography Award
2018
Winner
The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es

Shortlist
To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah by Benjamin Zephaniah

2017
Winner
In the Days of Rain by Rebecca Stott

Shortlist
Once Upon a Time in the East: A Story of Growing Up by Xiaolu Guo
A Bold and Dangerous Family: The Rossellis and the Fight Against Mussolini by Caroline Moorehead
Fragile Lives by Professor Stephen Westaby
 
2016
Winner
Dadland: A Journey into Uncharted Territory by Keggie Carew
 
Shortlist
Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years by John Guy
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar
I'm Not With the Band: A Writer's Life lost in Music by Sylvia Patterson
 
2015
Winner
The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt, The Lost Hero of Science by Andrea Wulf
 
Shortlist
The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
The House by the Lake by Thomas Harding
John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr
 
2014
Winner
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
 
Shortlist
Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life by John Campbell
The Iceberg: A Memoir by Marion Coutts
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh
 
2013
Winner
The Pike: Gabriele D'Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
 
Shortlist
Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins by Gavin Francis
Hanns and Rudolf: The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz by Thomas Harding
The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink by Olivia Laing
 
2012
Winner
Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes by Mary M Talbot & Bryan Talbot
 
Shortlist
Patrick Leigh-Fermor: An Adventure by Artemis Cooper
The Crocodile by the Door: The story of a house, a farm and a family by Selina Guinness
Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household by Kate Hubbard
 
2011
Winner
Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas by Matthew Hollis
 
Shortlist
Thin Paths: Journeys in and around a Mountain Village by Julia Blackburn
Henry’s Demons: Living with Schizophrenia (A Father and Son’s Story) by Patrick Cockburn & Henry Cockburn
Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin
 
2010
Winner
The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
 
Shortlist
How to live: A life of Montaigne in twenty questions and one attempt at an answer by Sarah Bakewell
My Father’s Fortune: A Life by Michael Frayn
 
2009
Winner
The Strangest Man – The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius by Graham Farmelo
 
Shortlist
The Music Room by William Fiennes
Coda by Simon Gray
Dancing to the Precipice by Caroline Moorehead
 
2008
Winner
Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill
 
Shortlist
Bloomsbury Ballerina by Judith Mackrell
If You Don’t Know Me By Now by Sathnam Sanghera
Chagall by Jackie Wullschlager
 
2007
Winner
Young Stalin by Simon Sebag-Montefiore
 
Shortlist
Rudolf Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh
Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre
Fatty Batter by Michael Simkins
 
2006
Winner
Keeping Mum by Brian Thompson
 
Shortlist
George Mackay Brown – The Life by Maggie Fergusson
Donne: A Reformed Soul by John Stubbs
Nabeel’s Song by Jo Tatchell
 
Whitbread Biography Award
2005
Winner
Matisse: The Master by Hilary Spurling
 
Shortlist
Haw-Haw: The Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce by Nigel Farndale
Nature Cure by Richard Mabey
Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters
 
2004
Winner
My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots by John Guy
 
Shortlist
Jabez: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Rogue by David McKie
Stephen Spender by John Sutherland
V.S.Pritchett: A Life by Jeremy Treglown
 
2003
Winner
Orwell: The Life by DJ Taylor
 
Shortlist
Margaret Thatcher – Volume Two: The Iron Lady by John Campbell
Martha Gellhorn by Caroline Moorehead
Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Wilson
 
2002
Winner
Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin
 
Shortlist
Anthony Blunt: His Lives by Miranda Carter
The Real Mrs Miniver by Ysenda Maxtone Graham
Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox
 
2001
Winner
Selkirk’s Island by Diana Souhami
 
Shortlist
A View of Delft by Anthony Bailey
Boswell’s Presumptuous Task by Adam Sisman
Flaubert: A Life by Geoffrey Wall
 
2000
Winner
Bad Blood by Lorna Sage
 
Shortlist
Fanny Burney by Claire Harman
John Ruskin: The Later Years by Tim Hilton
Hitler: 1936-45 Nemesis by Ian Kershaw
 
1999
Winner
Berlioz, Volume 2  by David Cairns
 
Shortlist
Bruce Chatwin by Nicholas Shakespeare
Matisse by Hilary Spurling
 
1998
Winner
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman
 
Shortlist
Iris, A memoir of Iris Murdoch by John Bayley
Hitler, Volume One Hubris 1889 – 1936 by Ian Kershaw
 
1997
Winner
Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes
Victor Hugo by Graham Robb
 
Shortlist
Violet: The Life and Loves of Violet Gordon Woodhouse by Jessica Douglas-Home
Queen of Whale Cay by Kate Summerscale
Citizen Lord by Stella Tillyard
Hogarth, A Life and a World by Jenny Uglow
 
1996
Winner
Thomas Cranmer: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch
 
Shortlist
George Eliot: A Life by Rosemary Ashton
The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline by Flora Fraser
Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett by James Knowlson
 
1995
Winner
Gladstone by Roy Jenkins
 
Shortlist
Vera Brittain – A Life by Paul Berry & Mark Bostridge
Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth by Gitta Sereny
Terence Rattigan by Geoffrey Wansell
 
1994
Winner
DH Lawrence: The Married Man  y Brenda Maddox
 
1993
Winner
Philip Larkin: A Writer’s Life by Andrew Motion
 
1992
Winner
Trollope by Victoria Glendinning
 
1991
Winner
A Life of Picasso by John Richardson
 
1990
Winner
AA Milne: His Life by Ann Thwaite
 
1989
Winner
Coleridge: Early Visions by Richard Holmes
 
1988
Winner
Tolstoy by AN Wilson
 
1987
Winner
Under the Eye of the Clock by Christopher Nolan
 
1986
Winner
Gilbert White by Richard Mabey
 
1985
Winner
Hugh Dalton by Ben Pimlott
 
1984
Winner
TS Eliot by Peter Ackroyd
 
1983
Winners
Vita by Victoria Glendinning
King George V by Kenneth Rose
 
1982
Winner
Bismarck by Edward Crankshaw
 
1981
Winner
Monty: The Making of a General by Nigel Hamilton
 
1980
Winner
On the Edge of Paradise: AC Benson the Diarist by David Newsome
 
1979
Winner
About Time by Penelope Mortimer
 
1978
Winner
Lloyd George: The People's Champion by John Grigg
 
1977
Winner
Mary Curzon by Nigel Nicolson
 
1976
Winner
Elizabeth Gaskell by Winifred Gerin
 
1975 Whitbread Autobiography Award
Winner
In Our Infancy by Helen Corke
 
1974
Winner
Poor Dear Brendan by Andrew Boyle
 
1973
Winner
CB: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman by John Wilson
 
1972
Winner
Trollope by James Pope-Hennessy
 
1971
Winner
Henrik Ibsen by Michael Meyer
​