News
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Mark Nayler wins 2024 Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize
The Biographers’ Club is delighted to announce that the winner of the Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize 2024 is Mark Nayler for his proposal ‘The Popular Philosopher: A Life of Bryan Magee’. His victory was announced at the Biographers’ Club Christmas Party, held in Albany, Piccadilly, on 11th December. Out of a strong and varied shortlist of…
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The Biographers’ Club is delighted to announce that the biographer, historian and novelist Lucy Hughes-Hallett has been awarded The Exceptional Contribution to Biography Award 2024
Author of The Pike: Gabriele D’Annunzio (2013) which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize, the Costa Biography Award and the Political Book Awards Biography of the Year. In 2020 The Sunday Times called it ‘the biography of the decade’. Previous biographical works include Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions and Heroes: Saviours, Traitors and Supermen. Lucy’s latest book published to…
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Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize 2024 Shortlist announced
The shortlist for the 2024 Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize has been announced. The prize awards £2,000 to the best proposal for an uncommissioned first biography. The Prize, run by the Biographers’ Club, is generously sponsored by the Duke of Buccleuch in memory of his late wife Elizabeth, Duchess of Buccleuch(1954-2023). The shortlisted proposals are (in alphabetical order): Jane Anson, Lili, Countess 57628 The…
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Lesley Downer at Daunt, Marylebone
Lesley Downer launched her new book, The Shortest History of Japan (Old Street), at Daunt Books in Marylebone. The book presents 16,500 years of history in fewer than 250 pages, and is, in the words of her publisher Ben Yarde-Buller, ‘a model of clarity and expertise’. With her are old friends Robert Rigby (the Lord…
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Black Spring Press publishes TLP-shortlisted Jay Prosser
Jay Prosser was shortlisted the Tony Lothian (now Elizabeth Buccleuch) prize in 2019 for the best proposal by a first-time biographer, as well as winning the Hazel Rowley Prize in the US. Now his completed book, Loving Strangers: A Camphorwood Chest, A Legacy, A Son Returns, is published by Black Spring Press. The synopsis: ‘At…
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Summer party
We enjoyed one of the first warm evenings of the year at our summer party, held in the garden of St Mark’s Church Regent’s Park. Watch out for news next month of our programme for the autumn.
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Chink’s letters and war diary
Pen & Sword publishes at the end of June Military Maverick: Selected Letters and War Diary of ‘Chink’ Dorman-Smith, edited by Club member Lavinia Greacen. The book follows Greacen’s acclaimed biography of Dorman-Smith, Chink (‘deserves wide attention’ – Frederick Raphael, the Listener; ‘A dazzling triumph’ – Irish Times). Dorman-Smith, who was to appear in various…
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Tony Lothian Prize winner Sarah Harkness launches debut
Sarah Harkness has seen the proposal that won her the Tony Lothian (now Elizabeth Buccleuch) prize come to fruition with Macmillan’s release of her Literature for the People: How the Pioneering Macmillan Brothers Built a Publishing Powerhouse. The launch of the book took place at Hatchards, where the guests included Daniel Macmillan’s great-great grandson the…
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Ariane Bankes at Daunt, Marylebone
There was quite a crush at Daunt Books as many friends celebrated with Ariane Bankes (left, with Clare Bullock of Duckwoth) , the Biographers’ Club prizes administrator, publication of her new book The Quality of Love. You can read more about the party here. Ariane is discussing her book with Cressida Connolly at Hatchards on…
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Hatchards and the Biographers’ Club are delighted to announce the launch of the Hatchards & Biographers’ Club First Biography Prize, the first year of Hatchards’ sponsorship, following our highly successful partnership with Slightly Foxed.
The prize awards £2,500 to the best biography or memoir published that year, and has been won in recent years by Daniel Finkelstein, Katherine Rundell and Osman Yousefzada, Lea Ypi, Heather Clark, Jonathan Phillips, Bart van Es, Edmund Gordon and Hisham Matar. The judges for 2024 will be: Tom Baily has worked at Hatchards bookshop…