Search
2020
Winners
Unicorn by Amrou Al-Kadhi
The Art of the Body by Alex Allison
Michael Tippett: The Biography by Oliver Soden
Moder Dy by Roseanne Watt
2019
Winners
The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus
Stopping Places: A Journey Through Gypsy Britain by Damian Le Bas
Shrines of Upper Austria by Phoebe Power
Mrs Gaskell and Me by Nell Stevens

Shortlist
The Golden Thread by Kassia St Clair
The Crossway by Guy Stagg
2018
Winners
Kumukanda by Kayo Chingonyi
Elmet by Fiona Mozley
All the Prayers in the House by Miriam Nash

​Shortlist
Fortune Cookie by Jenna Clake
The Unrivalled Transcendence of Willem J. Gyle by JD Dixon​
2017
The Invention of Angela Carter by Edmund Gordon
Sunshine by Melissa Lee-Houghton
Infinite Ground by Martin MacInnes
2016
An Account Of The Decline Of The Great Auk, According To One Who Saw It by Jessie Greengrass
Mr & Mrs Disraeli: A Strange Romance by Daisy Hay
Physical by Andrew McMillan
We Don't Know What We're Doing by Thomas Morris
Happiness by Jack Underwood
2015
How to Ruin a Queen: Marie Antoinette, the Stolen Diamonds and the Scandal that Shook the French Throne by Jonathan Beckman
Black Country by Liz Berry
Lolito by Ben Brooks
Eat My Heart Out by Zoe Pilger
2014
Hunters in the Snow by Daisy Hildyard
The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed
Orkney by Amy Sackville
2013
The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman
The Glass Delusion by Abi Curtis
The Adult by Joe Stretch
Diving Belles by Lucy Wood
2011
The Squirrels Are Dead by Miriam Gamble
Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris
In the Flesh by Adam O'Riordan
2010
White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
Talk of the Town by Jacob Polley
What Price Liberty? by Ben Wilson
2009
Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River by Alice Albinia
The Broken Word by Adam Foulds
Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography by Rodge Glass
The Secret Life of Words by Henry Hitchings
The Exchange Rate Between Love and Money by Thomas Leveritt
Once Upon a Time in England by Helen Walsh
2008
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
On Purpose by Nick Laird
Joshua Spassky by Gwendoline Riley
Miss Herbert by Adam Thirlwell
2007
Running to the Hills by Horatio Clare
The Amnesia Clinic by James Scudamore
2006
Incendiary by Chris Cleave
Skirrid Hill by Owen Sheers
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
2005
Passing Under Heaven by Justin Hill
The Distance Between Us by Maggie O'Farrell
2004
Two Kinds of Silence by Mark Blayney
Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane
Daughters of Jerusalem by Charlotte Mendelson
2003
The Snow Geese by William Fiennes
The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor
2002
Black Earth City by Charlotte Hobson
The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes: A Paper Chase by Marcel Theroux
2001
Leadville by Edward Platt
Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice
2000
The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst
Affinity by Sarah Waters
1999
Once In a House On Fire by Andrea Ashworth
The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See you by Paul Farley
The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden
Bring Home the Revolution by Jonathan Freedland
1998
The Country Life by Rachel Cusk
This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own by Jonathan Rendall
Queen of Whale Cay by Kate Summerscale
Angry White Pyjamas by Robert Twigger
1997
The Testimony of Taliesin Jones by Rhidian Brook
Slattern by Kate Clanchy
Kitchen Venom by Philip Hensher
I May Be Some Time by Francis Spufford
1996
Truffle Beds by Katherine Pierpoint
Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
1995
Younghusband by Patrick French
The End of Innocence by Simon Garfield
The Queen of Sheba by Kathleen Jamie
The Dogs by Laura Thompson
1994
Other Lovers by Jackie Kay
Looking for the Possible Dance by AL Kennedy
Crossing Place by Philip Marsden
1993
Jella by Dea Birkett
Out of the Rain by Glyn Maxwell
Bucket of Tongues by Duncan McLean
1992
But Beautiful by Geoff Dyer
Lempriere’s Dictionary by Lawrence Norfolk
Householder by Gerard Woodward
1991
The Other Occupant by Peter Benson
Honour Thy Father by Lesley Glaister
Four Bare Legs in a Bed by Helen Simpson
1990
Our Grandmother’s Drums by Mark Hudson
The Automatic Man by Sam North
The Vision of Elena Silves by Nicholas Shakespeare
1989
Romantic Affinities by Rupert Christiansen
The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
The Birds of the Innocent Wood by Deirdre Madden
1988
The Land That Lost Its Heroes by Jimmy Burns
Selling Manhattan by Carol Ann Duffy
Whore Banquets by Matthew Kneale
1987
The Cormorant by Stephen Gregory
Isaac Campion by Janni Howker
The Lamberts by Andrew Motion
1986
Family, Myths and Legends by Patricia Ferguson
Frontiers by Adam Nicolson
Tongues of Flames by Tim Parks
1985
Dark Glasses by Blake Morrison
By the Fisheries by Jeremy Reed
Her Living Image by Jane Rogers
1984
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde by Peter Ackroyd
The Polish Revolution: Solidarity by Timothy Garton Ash
The Indoor Park by Sean O'Brien
1983
Keepers of the House by Lisa St Aubin de Terán
1982
A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd
Lantern Lecture by Adam Mars-Jones
1981
Metroland by Julian Barnes
Hearts of Gold by Clive Sinclair
The Healing Art by AN Wilson
1980
The Inklings by Humphrey Carpenter
Bomber Command by Max Hastings
Arcadia by Christopher Reid
1979
Jack & Jill by Helen Hodgman
Daughter of Jerusalem by Sara Maitland
1978
A State of Justice by Tom Paulin
My Life Closed Twice by Nigel Williams
1977
Shelley: The Pursuit by Richard Holmes
1976
The Dead of Winter by Dominic Cooper
First Love, Last Rites by Ian McEwan
1974
The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis
1973
Play Things by Peter Prince
A Season in Abyssinia by Paul Strathern
Prudence Dictates by Jonathan Street
1972
Terry Street by Douglas Dunn
Fly Away Home by Gillian Tindall
1971
The Knight and Chivalry by Richard Barber
Tussy Is Me by Michael Hastings
I’m the King of the Castle by Susan Hill
1970
A Sweet, Sweet Summer by Jane Gaskell
Monk Dawson by Piers Paul Read
1969
Several Perceptions by Angela Carter
 
1968
At The Jerusalem by Paul Bailey
Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney
 
1967
Trawl by BS Johnson
The Better Half by Andrew Sinclair
 
1966
The Tin Men by Michael Frayn
The White Father by Julian Mitchell
 
1965
Negatives by Peter Everett
 
1964
Time of Arrival by Dan Jacobson
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré
 
1963
Flight into Camden by David Storey
 
1962
The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas
 
1961
Miguel Street by VS Naipaul
 
1960
The Hawk in the Rain by Ted Hughes
1959
The Sense of Movement by Thom Gunn
 
1958
Preliminary Essays by John Wain
 
1957
In the Castle of my Skin by George Lamming
 
1956
A Way of Looking by Elizabeth Jennings
 
1955
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
 
1954
Five Short Novels by Doris Lessing
 
1953
Hear and Forgive by Emyr Humphreys
 
1952
The Dividing Stream by Francis King
 
1951
Scamp by Roland Camberton
 
1950
Tomato Cain & Other Stories by Nigel Kneale
 
1949
Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica by Hamish Henderson
 
1948
Journey to the Interior by PH Newby
 
1947
Innocents by AL Barker