Awards

Marsh Biography Award

The Award is presented to the author of the best biography written in the previous two years by a British author. The judges look for a work that is histrorically important, records singificant human achievement and is representative of the highest standards or writing and research. The Award has been running since 1987 and is presented biennially.



The 2009 winner is Rosemary Hill

Rosemary Hill has won the Marsh Biography Award 2007-2008 for her book God’s Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain [Penguin Press, 2007].

Dr Alastair Niven, representing the Judging Panel stated: Rosemary Hill’s book on Pugin is one of the best biographies of recent times. It brings back to our attention the most influential interior designer and architect of the high Victorian period, a man strangely under-recognised in his time and even now coming across to us as vulnerable and in need of re-discovery. This is more than the life of an endearingly human and compulsively energetic artist. It is a study of the social, spiritual and aesthetic life of mid nineteenth-century England. God’s Architect is as close to being a masterpiece of biographical writing as we can be entitled to expect.

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Partner:

The English-Speaking Union

Previous Winners:

2007 - Maggie Fergusson for "George Mackay Brown: A Life"

2005 - John Guy for "My Heart is My Own"

2003 - Brenda Maddox for "Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA"

2001 - Anthony Sampson for "Mandela"

1999 - Richard Holmes for "Coleridge: Darker Reflections"

1997 - Jim Ring for "Erskine Childers"

1995 - Selina Hastings for "Evelyn Waugh"

1993 - Patrick Marnham for "The Man who Wasn't Maigret"

1991 - Hugh & Mirabel Cecil for "Clever Hearts"

1989 - David Gilmour for "The Last Leopard"

1987 - Roland Huntford for "Shackleton"