# Walter Scott Prize

The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction is a British literary award founded in 2010. At £25,000, it is one of the largest literary awards in the UK. The award was created by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, whose ancestors were closely linked to Scottish author Sir Walter Scott, who is generally considered the originator of historical fiction with the novel Waverley in 1814.
Eligible books must have been first published in the UK, Ireland or Commonwealth in the preceding year. For the purpose of the award, historical fiction is defined as being that where the main events take place more than 60 years ago, i.e. outside of any mature personal experience of the author. The winner is announced each June at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose.

## Recipients

| Year | Author | Title | Story and setting | Result |
| 2010 | Hilary Mantel | Wolf Hall | Thomas Cromwell (1490s–1532) | Winner |
| 2010 | Adam Thorpe | Hodd | Robin Hood (early medieval) | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Robert Harris | Lustrum | Cicero (106–43 BC) | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Sarah Dunant | Sacred Hearts | 16th-century Italian convent | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Iain Pears | Stone's Fall | Early 20th-century mystery/thriller | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Simon Mawer | The Glass Room | 1930s Czech | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Adam Foulds | The Quickening Maze | John Clare and Alfred Tennyson (early 19th century) | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Andrea Levy | The Long Song | 1820s Jamaica | Winner |
| 2011 | Tom McCarthy | C | Turn of the 20th-century Europe | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Joseph O'Connor | Ghost Light | 20th-century England and Ireland | Shortlist |
| 2011 | C. J. Sansom | Heartstone | England during the summer of 1545 | Shortlist |
| 2011 | David Mitchell | The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet | late 18th-century Shogun Japan | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Andrew Williams | To Kill a Tsar | St. Petersburg around the turn of the 20th century | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Sebastian Barry | On Canaan's Side | 20th-century Ireland and Chicago | Winner |
| 2012 | Esi Edugyan | Half-Blood Blues | World War II-era Europe | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Andrew Miller | Pure | Paris in 1786 | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Barry Unsworth | The Quality of Mercy | London of 1767 and a Durham coastal mining village | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Patrick deWitt | The Sisters Brothers | Oregon and California in 1851 | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Alan Hollinghurst | The Stranger's Child | World War I-era Europe | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Tan Twan Eng | The Garden of Evening Mists | 1940s and '50s Malaya | Winner |
| 2013 | Hilary Mantel | Bring Up the Bodies | Thomas Cromwell (1532–1536) | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Rose Tremain | Merivel: A Man of His Time | 1680s England | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Thomas Keneally | The Daughters of Mars | WWI | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Anthony Quinn | The Streets | 1880s London | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Pat Barker | Toby's Room | WWI | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Robert Harris | An Officer and a Spy | Dreyfus Affair, which took place in France in the late 1890s | Winner |
| 2014 | Andrew Greig | Fair Helen | 1590s in the Borderland of Scotland and England | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Jim Crace | Harvest | remote English village following the Enclosure Act in the 18th century | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Kate Atkinson | Life After Life | during the 20th century | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Eleanor Catton | The Luminaries | New Zealand gold rush of the 19th century | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Ann Weisgarber | The Promise | 1900 Galveston hurricane | Shortlist |
| 2015 | John Spurling | The Ten Thousand Things | China in the 14th century | Winner |
| 2015 | Kamila Shamsie | A God in Every Stone | India during WWI | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Damon Galgut | Arctic Summer | India in the early 20th century | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Adam Foulds | In the Wolf's Mouth | Italy in World War II | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Helen Dunmore | The Lie | England during WWI | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Martin Amis | The Zone of Interest | Europe during World War II | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Hermione Eyre | Viper Wine | England in the 17th century | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Simon Mawer | Tightrope | France WWII | Winner |
| 2016 | Patrick Gale | A Place Called Winter | early 20th century Saskatchewan | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Allan Massie | End Games in Bordeaux | France WWII | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Gavin McCrea | Mrs Engels | 19th century England | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Lucy Treloar | Salt Creek | mid-19th century Australia | Shortlist |
| 2016 | William Boyd | Sweet Caress | 20th century global | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Sebastian Barry | Days Without End | US Civil War | Winner |
| 2017 | Jo Baker | A Country Road, a Tree | WWII France | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Francis Spufford | Golden Hill | 18th century New York | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Graham Swift | Mothering Sunday | 1924 | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Hannah Kent | The Good People | 19th century Ireland | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Rose Tremain | The Gustav Sonata | Switzerland during WWII | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Charlotte Hobson | The Vanishing Futurist | Russia early Soviet era | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Ben Myers | The Gallows Pole | Yorkshire 18th century | Winner |
| 2018 | Paul Lynch | Grace | 19th century Ireland | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Jennifer Egan | Manhattan Beach | WWII New York | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Rachel Malik | Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves | WWII | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Jane Harris | Sugar Money | 18th century Martinique and Grenada | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Patrick McGrath | The Wardrobe Mistress | 1940s London | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Robin Robertson | The Long Take | American, post WWII | Winner |
| 2019 | Peter Carey | A Long Way From Home | 1950s Australia | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Cressida Connolly | After the Party | 1938 England | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Andrew Miller | Now We Shall Be Entirely Free | 1809 Spain | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Samantha Harvey | The Western Wind | 1491 | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Michael Ondaatje | Warlight | 1945 London | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Christine Dwyer Hickey | The Narrow Land | 1950s, Cape Cod | Winner |
| 2020 | Marguerite Poland | A Sin of Omission | late 19th century, South Africa and England | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Joseph O'Connor | Shadowplay | 1878, London | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Isabella Hammad | The Parisian | pre-WWI, Europe, Palestine | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Tim Pears | The Redeemed | WWI, West Country, England | Shortlist |
| 2020 | James Meek | To Calais, in Ordinary Time | 14th century, England | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Hilary Mantel | The Mirror & the Light | Thomas Cromwell (1536–1540) | Winner |
| 2021 | Kate Grenville | A Room Made of Leaves | early colonial period, Australia | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Maggie O'Farrell | Hamnet | late 16th century, Stratford-upon-Avon | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Pip Williams | The Dictionary of Lost Words | 1880s–1920s, Oxford | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Steven Conte | The Tolstoy Estate | 1812 and 1941, Russia | Shortlist |
| 2022 | James Robertson | News of the Dead | Fictitious Highland glen through three different eras | Winner |
| 2022 | Andrew Greig | Rose Nicholson | Scotland of the 1570s | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Amanda Smyth | Fortune | Caribbean oil rush of the 1920s | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Colm Tóibín | The Magician | Twentieth-century Europe, seen though the life of Thomas Mann | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Lucy Caldwell | These Days | Northern Ireland, Belfast Blitz 1940s | Winner |
| 2023 | Adrian Duncan | The Geometer Lobochevsky | Rural Ireland 1800s | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Robert Harris | Act of Oblivion | England 17th century | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Elizabeth Lowry | The Chosen | England, Thomas Hardy 1800s | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Fiona McFarlane | The Sun Walks Down | South Australia 1800s | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Simon Mawer | Ancestry | Crimea and England 1850s | Shortlist |
| 2023 | Devika Ponnambalam | I Am Not Your Eve | Tahiti, Paul Gauguin 1800s | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Kevin Jared Hosein | Hungry Ghosts | Harrowing epic set in 1940s Trinidad | Winner |
| 2024 | Tom Crewe | The New Life | Gay community in 1890s London | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Joseph O'Connor | My Father's House | Jews and POWs escape from the Gestapo in WWII Rome | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Kai Thomas | In the Upper Country | Underground Railroad refugees resettle in 1800s Ontario, Canada | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Rose Tremain | Absolutely and Forever | Broken relationships in 1960s London and Paris | Shortlist |
| 2024 | Tan Twan Eng | The House of Doors | Murder mystery and end of colonialism in early 20th C Penang, Malaysia | Shortlist |