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Frances Wilson at Maggs
Frances Wilson (right), with Rachel Holmes chairing, gave a compelling talk at Maggs Bros about her biography Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark (Bloomsbury). The audience heard about, among other things, Spark’s ‘spookiness’ – ‘Everything that happened to her, she’d written about’; about the recurrence in her life and work of people with the…
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Save the date – Hatchards Best First Biography prize
Prize-giving on Thursday 5 March Hatchards Piccadilly.
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Jane Dismore shortlisted
Congratulations club member Jane Dismore’s book No Country for a Woman: The Adventurous Life of Lady Dorothy Mills, Explorer & Writer (The History Press, 2025) has been shortlisted in the Biography/Memoir category for the East Anglian Book Awards 2025. https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/writing-hub/eaba-shortlist-25/
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Club member scales Yala Peak
Club member Rosemary J Brown has been awarded an Authors’ Foundation grant for books in progress from the Society of Authors (SoA). Endowed by Lady Antonia Fraser, the grant supports the research and writing of a biography of a woman or women. Brown used it to join an all-woman mountaineering expedition to Yala Peak (5,550…
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New book from Paul Smiddy
The latest book from Club member Paul Smiddy is Moonlight Crusaders: Special Duties Pilots over Occupied Europe (Osprey).It explores the creation, development and actions of the Special Duties squadrons, which carried spies, political figures and documents in and out of Occupied Europe. Packed with first-hand accounts and expert research, this book dives into the history…
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BLYTHE BIOGRAPHY WINS NEW ANGLE PRIZE
Blythe Spirit: The Remarkable Life of Ronald Blythe, by Ian Collins, has won the 2025 New Angle Prize for Literature. The judges said: ‘Ian Collins moved us with the obvious affection that he has for Ronald Blythe. It is a work that is rich, insightful in its research, which gives a comprehensive but totally fascinating…
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Gillian Tindall 1938-2025
The Biographers’ Club is very sorry to report the death of Gillian Tindall, an active member for many years and an outstanding biographer and historian. Gillian Tindall began her authorial career as a novelist, winning a Somerset Maugham award, but became better known for biographies such as her life of George Gissing, and for histories…
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Christmas Party and Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize-Giving
Wednesday 10 December, 6.30pm to 8.30pm, at Albany, PiccadillyJoin us for drinks and nibbles at our Christmas party, and for the presentation of the Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize, given for the best proposal by a first-time biographer. Tickets: £20 (members and guests). PLEASE PAY BY BANK TRANSFER OR THROUGH YOUR BRANCH. Book and get bank details…
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Frances Wilson and the enigma of Muriel Spark
Time: 6.30pm, Tuesday 11 NovemberAddress: Maggs Bros, Bedford Square Frances Wilson’s Electric Spark (Bloomsbury), about the early years of the great novelist Muriel Spark, can claim to be the most highly praised biography of 2025. ‘A brilliant, wonderfully shrewd biography’ (William Boyd); ‘Pitch-perfect, electrifying. Reconfirms Wilson’s pre-eminence as Maestra of British biography’ (Rachel Holmes); ‘Joyously,…
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The Biographers Club Summer Party!
Date and time: Tuesday 1st July, 6.30pm-8.30pmVenue: St Mary’s Rectory, Draycott Terrace, Chelsea, SW3 2BG 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. Tickets: £25 RSVP and apply for bank details (no cheques, please): [email protected]
