The Biographers' Club Tony Lothian Prize (previously known as the Biographers' Club Prize, established and funded by the Club's founder Andrew Lownie in 1998 and then sponsored by the Daily Mail until 2008).

Antonella, Marchioness of Lothian, OBE (1922-2007) – always known as Tony – was a champion of many causes. The most far-sighted and inspired was her vision and subsequent organisation of The Woman of the Year Lunch, founded with Odette Hallowes and Georgina Coleridge in 1955 and which continues to flourish today. She was also a current affairs columnist on the Scottish Daily Express and a broadcaster and television presenter. Her proudest achievement, however, was her biography of Valentina Tereshkova, First Woman in Space, which was initiated by their shared values and close friendship. Writing was her passion and, for Tony, biography was its most potent form: 'A means to shedding a perceptive light on personalities and the events they were part of.' It was the perfect foil for her irrepressible curiosity about human nature and the narrative of history.

Tony Lothian was a steadfast advocate of talented writers of all ages and backgrounds, and we are delighted to rename our annual prize (of £2,000) for first-time biographers The Biographers' Club Tony Lothian Prize, which was made possible through the generous gift of her family.

See 'Prize Entry' for details of eligibility and how to apply (the Prize is open to UK and non-UK residents).

Click here for an article by the Prize Administrator

 

The winner of the £2,000 Tony Lothian Prize 2011 was Jane Gordon-Cumming for The American Heiress and the Scottish Rake: The True Story of the Royal Baccarat Scandal. On behalf of the judges, Valerie Grove said: ‘A famous scandal at the card table, involving the Prince of Wales; an American heiress, one of three sisters who married into the Victorian aristocracy; an opening scene of thrilling drama, as a splendid yacht sinks in a storm. “A cracking good story here,” as Jane Gordon-Cumming confidently told us, and the judges agreed. The American heiress was her grandmother Florence; the Scottish rake her grandfather Sir William Gordon-Cumming – both “flawed, exasperating, eccentric but huge characters”. A sure winner.’

 

Shortlisted entrants:

Chas Chandler: The Man Who Made Hendrix – Elaine Cusack

Snow Widows: Married to the Antarctic – Katherine MacInnes

Profile in String: The Life of Barbara Skelton – Graham Page
Richard Aldington: Poet, Soldier and Lover – Vivien Whelpton

 

This prize is for the best proposal by an unpublished, first-time biographer. Judges: Valerie Grove, journalist and biographer of Laurie Lee and John Mortimer, among others; Jane Mays, consulting literary editor at the Daily Mail; and David Waller, author of The Magnificent Mrs Tennant.

 

Summaries of the shortlisted entries:

Chas Chandler: The Man Who Made Hendrix by Elaine Cusack

Jane tells the intriguing story of her grandparents, Sir William and Lady Florence Gordon-Cumming. At the centre of their stormy relationship was the notorious Royal Baccarat Scandal of 1890, which incurred the wrath of the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII) when the ensuing slander trial – voraciously reported by the press on both sides of the Atlantic – exposed his dubious private life. Florence Garner, an orphaned American heiress, was engaged to him at the time. Always believing his innocence, she stood by him when he lost the case, and shared his social exile to their Scottish estates. Surrounding the set piece of the Scandal, Jane explores these ‘flawed, exasperating, eccentric characters’ and their remarkable backgrounds, including the drowning of Florence’s parents when she was seven, and William’s numerous, not-so-discreet affairs with some of the most well-known women in high society. This is a cracking story told with a light touch; its grand setting, royal connections and American antecedents will ensure a broad readership. 

The story begins in a remote corner of New Zealand at 2am on 10th February 1913 when two women, Kathleen Scott and Oriana Wilson, receive the news that they have been widows for a year. Emily Shackleton, whose husband is still very much alive, embarks on what she described as the ‘unhappiest years of our marriage’. The fourth leading character is the silent, beckoning Antarctic, in all its pure and deadly glory. Snow Widows weaves between three disparate women united in grief and fortitude, revealing a well-known story from a startlingly new perspective. Balancing the painful issue of collateral damage against the unexpected advantages of being married to an explorer, author and playwright Katherine MacInnes approaches these parallel lives with unobtrusive empathy – her husband is an ‘Everester’. Written with a dramatist’s flair for narrative pacing and a biographer’s eye for telling detail, Snow Widows is an edifying and thrilling addition to the history of the Antarctic.

Barbara Skelton was one of the most wayward and outrageous women in 20^th-century literary London: once met never forgotten. The former model used her looks as much as her intellect to get what she wanted – personally and professionally, and was infamous for her mistreatment of lovers and friends. She married two publishing VIPs, Cyril Connolly and George Weidenfeld, and the nuclear physicist Derek Jackson (who was married six times). Her long list of lovers included Lucian Freud, Kenneth Tynan and King Farouk of Egypt. Unsurprisingly, her sexual machinations overshadowed her writing career: she published five books, including two memoirs, which formed the basis of the 1994 film A Business Affair. She was also the acknowledged inspiration for Pamela Widmerpool in Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. For her authorised biographer, Graham Page, she is a gift of a subject: a feline seductress who led a life of passionate abandon; a singular writer whose sharp wit cut deep and unsparingly; and the fount of boundless source material – she knew everyone who counted and crops up in myriad memoirs, biographies and documentaries. Added to this, Graham has the consummate ally in her literary executor Jeremy Lewis.

Founding member of the Imagist movement, Richard Aldington was an astonishingly productive writer, publishing more than a dozen volumes of poetry, eight novels and numerous biographies and works of translation. His style could be savage and bitter, in part owing to shellshock, from which he never completely recovered. Among many equally distinguished grandees, his friends – and adversaries – included W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, Ford Madox Ford, D.H. Lawrence and T.S. Eliot. Approaching the centenary of the First World War, Penguin will publish a new edition of his 1929 best-selling war novel Death of a Hero. Vivien Whelpton, with forty years’ experience as an English teacher, knows her poets and has written for various organisations such as the Wilfred Owen Association. She describes Aldington as: ‘A man whose sexual drive constantly overpowered his emotional integrity . . . an artist who struggled to find beauty in the ugliness of war and its aftermath.’ Her engrossing biography covers 1911-29; during these eighteen years alone he published twenty-eight books. In print, his was a life well spent; off the page it was a tempest of real and imagined betrayals, fierce fallings-out with friends and colleagues and a love life as prolific as his literary output. In all, rich territory for a biographer.