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