The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its motto "All the best stories are true", the prize covers current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. The competition is open to authors of any nationality whose work is published in the UK in English. The longlist, shortlist and winner is chosen by a panel of independent judges, which changes every year. Formerly named after English author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the award was renamed in 2015 after Baillie Gifford, an investment management firm and the primary sponsor. Since 2016, the annual dinner and awards ceremony has been sponsored by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
The prize is governed by the Board of Directors of The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction Limited, a not-for-profit company. Since 2018, the Chair of the Board has been Sir Peter Bazalgette, who succeeded Stuart Proffitt, the chair since 1999. In 2015, Toby Mundy was appointed as the Prize's first director.
History Prior to the establishment of the Samuel Johnson Prize, Britain's premier literary award for non-fiction was the NCR Book Award, which had been established in 1987. In 1997, the NCR Award experienced a scandal when it was revealed the judges, many of them chosen for their popularity rather than literary qualities, had used "ghost readers" and were not expected to read the books they voted on. Because of this and other problems the award ceased operations. In response, one of the previous winners of NCR Award, the historian Peter Hennessy, approached Stuart Proffitt, a Publishing Director at Penguin Press, with the idea for a new award. An anonymous benefactor was found who funded the establishment of the Prize, which was named after the English 18th-century author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson.
From its inception until 2001, the prize was independently financed by the founding benefactor. In 2002, it was taken over by the BBC and re-named the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize and managed by BBC Four. In 2009, the name was amended to the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and managed by BBC Two. The new name reflected the BBC's commitment to broadcasting coverage of the Prize on the BBC2 programme, The Culture Show. In 2016, the name was changed to the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, after its new primary sponsor, the Edinburgh-based investment management company Baillie Gifford.
Prior to the 2009 name change, the winner received , and each finalist received . After 2009, the award was for the winner, and each finalist received . In February 2012, the steering committee for the prize announced that a new sponsor had been found for the prize, an anonymous philanthropist, enabling the prize money to be raised to . In 2015, funding for the prize was arranged by the Blavatnik Family Foundation, while the organisers sought new primary sponsors from 2016 onwards.
In 2016, under new sponsors Baillie Gifford, the prize money was restored to for the winner.
In 2019, following the announcement that Baillie Gifford will sponsor the award until at least 2026, the prize money was increased to £50,000.
It is widely recognised as the UK's most prestigious award for non-fiction authors.
Winners and shortlists 1990s +1990s Samuel Johnson Prize winners and shortlistsYearAuthorTitleResultRef.1999StalingradHitler 1889–1936: Hubris (about Adolf Hitler)Pilate: The Biography of an Invented Man (about Pontius Pilate)C: Because Cowards Get Cancer TooColeridge: Darker Reflections (about Samuel Taylor Coleridge)The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
2000s +2000s Samuel Johnson Prize winners and shortlistsYearAuthorTitleResultRef.2000Berlioz: Volume 2Playing the Moldovans at TennisYeats's Ghosts: The Secret Life of W. B. Yeats (about W. B. Yeats)Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 ChaptersDeliver us from Evil: Warlords, Peacekeepers and a World of Endless ConflictKarl Marx (about Karl Marx)2001Trilobite!: Eyewitness to EvolutionNight of Stone: Death and Memory in RussiaRimbaud (about Arthur Rimbaud)Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin (about Grigory Potemkin)John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain, 1937–1946 (about John Maynard Keynes)2002Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End WarChurchill: a Biography (about Winston Churchill)Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia2003Pushkin: A Biography (about Alexander Pushkin)Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of RussiaDr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of SexSamuel Pepys: The Unequalled SelfNelson: Love and Fame (about Lord Nelson)2004Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin WallGulag: A History of the Soviet CampsJohn Clare: A Biography (about John Clare)Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic2005Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B. S. Johnson (about B. S. Johnson)Stuart: A Life BackwardsMaximum City: Bombay Lost and FoundIstanbul: Memories and the CityMatisse the Master: The Conquest of Colour 1909–1954 (about Henri Matisse)20061599: A Year in the Life of William ShakespeareUntold StoriesBad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family & FatherlandPostwar: A History of Europe Since 19452007Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green ZoneMurder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of ToleranceHaving It So Good: Britain in the FiftiesDaughter of the Desert: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell (about Gertrude Bell)Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control2008Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken HeartCrow Country (about V. S. Naipaul)2009Leviathan or, The WhaleLords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the WorldBad ScienceThe Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the AmazonThe Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of ScienceQuantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality
2010s +2010s Baillie Gifford Prize winner and shortlistYearAuthorTitleResultRef.2010Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North KoreaAlex's Adventures in Numberland: Dispatches from the Wonderful World of MathematicsBlood Knots: On Fathers, Friendship and FishingToo Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and ThemselvesCatching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human2011Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane (biography of Caravaggio)Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary WorldThe Rational Optimist: How Prosperity EvolvesBismarck: A Life (biography of Otto von Bismarck)Reprobates: The Cavaliers of the English Civil War2012Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of EverestBehind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai SlumStrindberg: A Life (about August Strindberg)2013Empires of the Dead: How One Man's Vision led to the Creation of WWI's World GravesReturn of a King: The Battle for AfghanistanUnder Another Sky: Journeys in Roman BritainMargaret Thatcher: The Authorised Biography2014H Is for HawkRoy Jenkins: A Biography (about Roy Jenkins)Common People: The History of an English FamilyVillage of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France2015NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think DifferentlyTed Hughes: The Unauthorised Life (about Ted Hughes)LandmarksThis Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan Civil War2016East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against HumanitySecondhand Time: The Last of the SovietsNegroland: A Memoir2017How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDSBorder: A Journey to the Edge of EuropeTo Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of DeathBelonging: The Story of the Jews, 1492–19002018Chernobyl: History of a TragedyHello World: How to Be Human in the Age of the MachineAmateur: A True Story About What Makes a ManImperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden AgeShe Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity2019Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper LeeOn Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons (about Lucian Freud)Maoism: A Global HistoryGuest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS
2020s +2020s Baillie Gifford Prize winner and shortlistYearAuthorTitleResultRef.2020One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint LouvertureOur Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does to WomenStranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World 2021Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler DynastyIslands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human LandscapeAftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945–1955 Things I Have WithheldFall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell (about Robert Maxwell)Free: Coming of Age at the End of History 2022Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne (about John Donne)Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (about Rudolf Vrba)My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route2023Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter WorldTime to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock's Gender Service for ChildrenRed Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Cultural Revolution,Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World 1848–1849Time's Echo: The Second World War, The Holocaust, and The Music of RemembranceMr. B: George Balanchine's Twentieth Century2024Question 7The Story of a HeartNuclear War: A ScenarioA Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a MemorialWild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World2025How to End a Story: Collected DiariesThe Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970sThe Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of BeliefCaptives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic WorldLone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of EuropeElectric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark2026Baldwin: A Love StoryDays of Love and Rage: A Story of RevolutionLondon Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for TruthAlexander: God, King, ManThe Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara CartlandThe Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity
25th Anniversary Winner of Winners Award In 2023, marking the 25th anniversary of the prize, a one-off 'Winner of Winners' Award was announced. The judging panel was chaired by Jason Cowley (New Statesman editor-in-chief) and included Shahidha Bari (academic, critic and broadcaster), Sarah Churchwell (journalist, author and academic), and Frances Wilson (biographer and critic). AuthorTitleWin YearResultRef.1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare2006One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time 2020Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest 2012Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea2010Patrick Radden KeefeEmpire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty2021Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War2002
See also British literature English literature List of years in literature List of literary awards Prizes named after people
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