:
  
  
  

THE BIOGRAPHERS CLUB PRIZE 2008

The £2,000 Biographers’ Club Prize, sponsored by the Daily Mail, supports uncommissioned first-time writers working on a biography.

This year’s judges are Nicola Beauman, publisher of Persephone Books and author of Cynthia Asquith and Morgan: A Life of E.M. Forster, Richard Davenport-Hines whose books include biographies of Proust and Auden, and Andrew Crofts, prolific ghostwriter and author of the forthcoming novel The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride.

Applicants should submit a proposal of no more than 20 pages, including a synopsis and 10-page sample chapter (double-spaced, numbered pages), CV, a note on the market for the book and competing literature, to the prize administrator: Anna Swan, anna@annaswan.co.uk or by post to 119A Fordwych Road, London NW2 3NJ.

The deadline for entries is 1 August 2008. Entry fee: £10 (cheques made payable to the Biographers’ Club). Further details at www.biographersclub.co.uk

The winner will be announced at the prize-giving dinner in September 2008.

 

JUDGES

1999 Michael Holroyd and Nigel Hamilton

2000 Victoria Glendinning, Richard Holmes and Frances Spalding

2001 Anne de Courcy, Selina Hastings and Alan Judd

2002 Anthony Sampson, Mary Lovell and Lyndall Gordon

2003 Sarah Bradford, Lucy Moore and Mary Amory

2004 David Ellis, Anne Chisholm and Anna Swan

2005 Miranda Seymour, Robert Lacey and Caroline Morehead

2006 HRH Princess Michael of Kent, Jeremy Lewis and Paul Laity

2007 Rachel Holmes, Anne Sebba and Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson

 

WINNERS

1999 Lucy Jago for The Northern Lights (Hamish Hamilton, 2001)

2000 Adrienne Gavin for Dark Horse: A Life of Anna Sewell (Sutton, 2004)

2001 Adrian Fort for Prof: The Life & Times of Frederick Lindemann (Cape, 2003)

2002 Anna Swan for Statues without Shadows (Hodder, 2005)

2003 Richard Adams for The Life and Love of John Stuart Mill

2004 Linda Porter for Josephine’s Enemies

2006 Birna Helgadottir for The Celebrated Misses Gunning
       Helen Smith for Edward Garnett: Midwife of Genius on the editor of Joseph
       Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, H.E. Bates et al.

2007 Clare Mulley for her life of the founder of Save the Children Eglantyne Jebb