The Biographers’ Club
The Biographers’ Club, founded in 1997, is committed to supporting, promoting and connecting biographers at all levels. It administers three prestigious annual prizes. Membership gives you access to Club talks, prize-givings and other networking opportunities, as well as listing on our website.
Find out more about The Biographers’ Club membership options, annual prizes and events calendar. Membership will also gain you access to our exclusive database of articles, news and latest in biography. Connect with us and become a part of a leading network of literacy specialists in biography.
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NEWS
The Hatchards and Biographers’ Club First Biography Prize is now open!

Click ‘continue reading’ below to find out more:
NEWS
The Biographers’ Club Summer Party, 2026
Date and time: Thursday 2 July, 6.30pm-8.30pm
Venue: St Mary’s, Cadogan Street, London SW3 2QP
Tickets: £25 from [email protected]
Join us for drinks and canapés in the garden of St Mary’s, a Grade II-listed Catholic church in Chelsea. There is a marquee in case of rain.

NEWS
JOIN IT: A NEW WAY TO PAY FOR MEMBERSHIP AND EVENTS
The Biographers’ Club is switching to the Join It platform to manage its membership list and events programme. From now on, you will get email reminders when your membership comes up for renewal, and you can pay directly, via Stripe, by following the links from the email button. Paying for events will be simpler too, via links on the events notices on our newsletters, or via the links on our website.
The website is unaffected by this move. Bookings for the summer party should still be made by emailing [email protected].
To check your membership, please click one of the links below, and then click ‘Member Log In’. You will be asked to enter your email address. If the system does not recognise you, your membership has expired. Click the Back button to go back to the payment page. Here are the links for various types of membership:
Student Membership: https://app.joinit.com/o/biographers-club/8LMRRKCKpEhBfoWhd
Associate Membership: https://app.joinit.com/o/biographers-club/Z7i5GuW57eghrA3sp
Full Membership: https://app.joinit.com/o/biographers-club/Pybnktv22rdXiMLGQ
Please note that if you are not a paid up member, you will receive no further newsletters after July.
NEWS
SALKELD BURSARY FOR CLUB MEMBER

Rosemary J Brown, whose new book Moving Mountains: Intrepid Women Climbers and the Peaks Named in Their Honour is out from the History Press in August, is among the recipients of the Alpine Club’s inaugural Audrey Salkeld Bursary for Media & Research Into Alpinism.
The bursary, established in honour of a renowned mountaineering historian, aims to facilitate new research into alpinism, mountaineering and the mountain environment, and to raise awareness of the Alpine Club’s library, archive and heritage collections.
Prizes
The Biographers’ Club awards three annual prizes:
The Hatchards & Biographers’ Club First Biography Prize
The Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize
Exceptional Contribution to Biography Award
Meet the Committee
The committee, who are responsible for the administration of the Club and for organising its events, is a group of dedicated volunteers who have extensive experience in the world of publishing and writing. They include bestselling biographers, journalists, and festival organisers.
Is a historian, biographer, author, broadcaster, and Professor of Modern History at the University of Buckingham. She has run the university’s MA course in Biography since establishing it in 1996. Jane won the Duff Cooper Prize in 2002 for The Architect and his Wife, a biography of her great-grandfather Edwin Lutyens. Other books include The Young Disraeli and The Letters of Arthur Balfour and Lady Elcho, ed. with Clayre Percy. She published the bestselling Bertie: A Life of Edward VII in 2012, followed by Victoria: Queen, Matriarch, Empress in the Penguin Monarchs Series and her latest book George V: Never a Dull Moment. She is currently working on a life of Queen Mary.
Founded the Travel Bookshop of the film Notting Hill fame in 1979 and ran it for 25 years. During that time, when she had reliable staff, she travelled and wrote articles for The Financial Times, The Times, the Guardian, Departures, Country Life, the Mail on Sunday and the Independent. She has also published, among other books, her memoir Halfway to Venus. She now travels, writes and paints. Her latest book is The Lost Art of Silence – Reconnecting to the Power and Beauty of Quiet.
Spent many years in publishing, and now works as writer, curator and critic. She has co-authored The New Aldeburgh Anthology; David Jones: Vision and Memory, and Julian Trevelyan: The Artist and his World, and curated exhibitions at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, on David Jones, Julian Trevelyan and Dora Carrington.
Her family memoir The Quality of Love: Twin Sisters at the Heart of the Century was published in 2024 by Duckworth in the UK and as The Dazzling Paget Sisters by McNally Editions in the US.
Is a former editor of the Bookseller, and joint editor of book industry newsletter BookBrunch. He is the author of Don’t Sweat the Aubergine: What Works in the Kitchen and Why; Eclipse: The Story of the Rogue, the Madam and the Horse That Changed Racing; a memoir, Things I Am Ashamed Of; and The Booker and the Best: Discrimination in the Book World.
is a biographer and social historian, who has been published as far afield as Thailand and Russia, as well as the U.S. Australia and variuous European countries. Two of her books have been made into documentaries; many have been best-sellers; among them are The Viceroy’s Daughters, The Fishing Fleet, Snowdon: The Biography, The Husband Hunters and Chanel’s Riviera: Life, Love and the Struggle for Survival on the Cote d’Azur, 1930-44. Anne has worked for the Evening Standard and the Daily Mail, and currently reviews for the Spectator. She is also co-founder (and on the Committee) of the bienial Bibury Literary Festival.
s founder and director of the Boswell Book Festival, the only festival dedicated to biography and memoir, named in honour of James Boswell and now a major cultural attraction in Scotland. Previously, Caroline had a long career in publishing working for André Deutsch and John Murray during which she commissioned a wide range of biography and memoir.
Is former Literary Editor of the Daily Mail.
President and Founder
Andrew Lownie was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was Dunster History Prizeman and President of the Union, before taking his Masters and doctorate at Edinburgh University. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and former visiting fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, he has run his own literary agency since 1988.
A trustee of the Campaign for Freedom of Information and President of The Biographers Club, he has written for the Times, Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, Spectator and Guardian . His books include lives of the writer John Buchan, the spy Guy Burgess (which won the St Ermin’s Hotel Intelligence Book Prize) and The Mountbatten: Their Lives and Loves, Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and most recently Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York.

