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