Hessell-Tiltman Prize
The Hessell-Tiltman History Prize is awarded to the best work of non-fiction of historical content covering a period up to and including World War II, and published in the year of the award. The books are to be of high literary merit but not primarily academic. The prize is organized by the English PEN. Marjorie Hessell-Tiltman was a member of PEN during the 1960s and 1970s. On her death in 1999 she bequeathed £100,000 to the PEN Literary Foundation to found a prize in her name. Each year's winner receives £2,000.
The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by PEN International affiliates in over 145 PEN centres around the world.
Winners and shortlist
A blue ribbon denotes the winner.2000s
2002
- Margaret MacMillan,
2003
- Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: The Friends who Made the Future 1730–1810
- William Dalrymple, White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in 18th Century India
- Geoffrey Moorhouse, The Pilgrimage of Grace: The Rebellion that Shook Henry VIII's Throne
- Munro Price, The Fall of the French Monarchy: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the Baron de Breteuil
- A.N. Wilson, The Victorians
2004
- Tom Holland, '
- James Buchan, Capital of the Mind: How Edinburgh Changed the World
- Norman Davies, Rising '44. The Battle for Warsaw
- Richard A. Fletcher, The Cross and the Crescent: The Dramatic Story of the Earliest Encounters Between Christians and Muslims
- Diarmaid MacCulloch, '
2005
- Paul Fussell, The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944–1945
- Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia
- Joachim Fest, Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich
- Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430–1950
- Jonathan Phillips, The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople
2006
- Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization
- Charles Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion
- Simon Schama,
2007
- Vic Gatrell, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London
- Jerry Brotton, The Sale of the Late King's Goods: Charles I and His Art Collection
- Deborah Cohen, Household Gods: The British and Their Possessions
- William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857
- J. H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World – Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830
- Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
2008
- Clair Wills, That Neutral Island
- Mark Mazower, Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe
- Philipp Blom, The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West 1900–1914
- Leo Hollis, The Phoenix: St Paul's Cathedral and the Men Who Made Modern London
- Frederick Spotts, The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation
2009
- Mark Thompson, The White War: Life & Death on the Italian Front 1915–1919
2010s
2010
- Diarmaid MacCulloch,
- Amanda Vickery, Behind Closed Doors: at Home in Georgian London
- Dominic Lieven, Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814
2011
- Toby Wilkinson, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: the History of a Civilisation from 3000 BC to Cleopatra
- Amanda Foreman, A World on Fire: an Epic History of Two Nations Divided
- Philip Mansel, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe in the Mediterranean
- Roger Moorhouse, Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler's Capital 1939–1945
2012
- James Gleick, ,
- Lizzie Collingham, The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food
- Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe
- David Edgerton, Britain's War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War
- Edward J. Larson, An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science
- Adam Hochschild, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918
2013
- Keith Lowe, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II
- Jerry Brotton, A History of the World in Twelve Maps
- Chris Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914
- Nigel Cliff, The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama
- Jonathan Dimbleby, Destiny in the Desert: The Road to El Alamein
- Mark Mazower, Governing the World: The History of an Idea
2014
- David Reynolds, The Long Shadow: The Great War and the Twentieth Century
- David Crane, Empires of the Dead: How One Man’s Vision led to the Creation of WWI's World Graves
- William Dalrymple, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan
- Vic Gatrell,
- Charlotte Higgins, Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain
- Carl Watkins, The Undiscovered Country: Journeys Among the Dead
2015
- Jessie Childs, God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England
- Mark Bostridge, The Fateful Year: England 1914
- Ronald Hutton, Pagan Britain
- Robert Tombs, The English and Their History
- Jenny Uglow, In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon's Wars
2016
- Nicholas Stargardt, The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945
- Mary Beard,
- Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
- Sarah Helm, If This is A Woman – Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women
- Raghu Karnad, The Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War
- James S. Shapiro, 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear
2017
- David Olusoga, Black and British: a Forgotten History
- Sarah Bakewell, At The Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- Jerry Brotton, This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World
- Susan L. Carruthers, The Good Occupation: American Soldiers and the Hazards of Peace
- Dan Cruickshank, Spitalfields: The History of a Nation in a Handful of Streets
- Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962–1976
- Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World
2018
- S. A. Smith, Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890-1928
- Stephen Alford, London's Triumph: Merchant Adventure and the Tudor City
- Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine
- Masha Gessen, The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
- Christopher J. Lebron, The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea
- Lynda Nead, The Tiger in the Smoke: Art and Culture in Post-War Britain
2019
- Edward Wilson-Lee, The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books: Young Columbus and the Quest for a Universal Library