Elizabeth Longford Prize

The Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography was established in 2003 in memory of Elizabeth Longford (1906-2002), the British author, biographer and historian. The £5,000 prize is awarded annually for a historical biography published in the preceding year.

The Elizabeth Longford Prize is sponsored by Flora Fraser and Peter Soros and administered by the Society of Authors.

2020s
2022


 * Winner: Andrew Roberts for George III: The Life and Reign of Britain’s Most Misunderstood Monarch (Allen Lane)

Shortlist:


 * Timothy Brennan for Places of Mind, A Life of Edward Said (Bloomsbury)
 * Helen Carr for The Red Prince: The Life of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster (Oneworld Publications)
 * Jonathan Petropoulos for Göring's Man in Paris: The Story of A Nazi Art Plunderer and His World (Yale University Press)
 * Jane Ridley for George V: Never a Dull Moment (Chatto & Windus)

2021


 * Winner: Fredrik Logevall for JFK: Vol 1 (Penguin Books)

Shortlist:


 * Sudhir Hazareesingh for Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture (Allen King)
 * Sarah LeFanu for Something of Themselves: Kipling, Kingsley, Conan Doyle and the Anglo-Boer War (Hurst)
 * Samanth Subramanian for A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S Haldane (Atlantic)

2020


 * Winner: D W. Hayton for Conservative Revolutionary: The Lives of Lewis Namier

Shortlist:


 * Andrew S. Curran for Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely
 * Richard J. Evans for Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History
 * Oliver Soden for Michael Tippett: The Biography
 * A. N. Wilson for Prince Albert: The Man Who Saved the Monarchy

2010s
2019 Shortlist:
 * Winner: Julian Jackson for A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle
 * Diarmaid MacCulloch for Thomas Cromwell: A Life
 * Andrew Roberts for Churchill: Walking with Destiny
 * Jeffrey C. Stewart for The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke

2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010
 * Giles Tremlett for Isabella of Castile: Europe's First Great Queen
 * John Bew for Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee
 * Andrew Gailey for The Lost Imperialist: Lord Dufferin, Memory and Mythmaking in an Age of Celebrity
 * Ben Macintyre for A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
 * Charles Moore for Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography. Volume 1
 * Anne Somerset for Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion
 * Frances Wilson for How to Survive the Titanic or The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay
 * Philip Ziegler for Edward Heath (bio of Edward Heath)
 * Tristram Hunt for The Frock-Coated Communist - The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels

2000s
2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003
 * Mark Bostridge for Florence Nightingale. The Woman and Her Legend
 * Rosemary Hill for God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain
 * Jessie Childs for Henry VIII's Last Victim: The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
 * Charles Williams for Petain: How the Hero of France Became a Convicted Traitor and Changed the Course of History
 * Ian Kershaw for ''Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry, the Nazis, and the Road to War'
 * Katie Whitaker for Mad Madge: Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, Royalist, Writer and Romantic
 * David Gilmour for The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling