# Costa Book Award for Biography

The Costa Book Award for Biography, formerly part of the Whitbread Book Awards (1971–2006), was an annual literary award for children's books, part of the Costa Book Awards. The award concluded in 2022.

## Recipients

Costa Books of the Year are distinguished wit a blue ribbon.
| Year | Author | Title | Subject | Result |
| 1971 | Michael Meyer | Henrik Ibsen | Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906), Norwegian playwright and theatre director | Winner |
| 1972 | James Pope-Hennessy | Anthony Trollope | Anthony Trollope (1815–1882), English novelist of the Victorian period | Winner |
| 1973 | John Wilson | CB: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman | Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman(1836–1908), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 | Winner |
| 1974 | Andrew Boyle | Poor, Dear Brendan: The Quest for Brendan Bracken | Brendan Bracken (1901–1958), Irish-born businessman and British politician | Winner |
| 1975 | Helen Corke | In Our Infancy | Helen Corke (1882–1978), English writer and schoolteacher | Winner |
| 1976 | Winifred Gerin | Elizabeth Gaskell | Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865), English writer | Winner |
| 1977 | Nigel Nicolson | Mary Curzon | Mary Curzon, Baroness Curzon of Kedleston(1870–1906), British noble, Vicereine of India | Winner |
| 1978 | John Grigg | Lloyd George: The People's Champion | Lloyd George (1863–1945), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922 | Winner |
| 1979 | Penelope Mortimer | About Time | Penelope Mortimer (1918–1999), Welsh-born English writer | Winner |
| 1980 | David Newsome | On the Edge of Paradise: A. C. Benson, Diarist | A. C. Benson (1862–1925), English essayist and poet | Winner |
| 1981 | Nigel Hamilton | Monty: The Making of a General | Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery KG, GCB, DSO, PC, DL (1887–1976), the first Viscount Montgomery of Alamein | Winner |
| 1982 | Edward Crankshaw | Bismarck | Otto von Bismarck (1871–1890), also known as the Iron Chancellor, the first Chancellor of Germany | Winner |
| 1983 | Victoria Glendinning | Vita | The Honorable Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson, CH (1892–1962), English author and garden designer (1892–1962) | Winner |
| 1983 | Kenneth Rose | King George V | King George V (1865–1936), King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India 1910–1936 | Winner |
| 1984 | Peter Ackroyd | T. S. Eliot | T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), US-born British poet | Winner |
| 1985 | Ben Pimlott | Hugh Dalton | Hugh Dalton (1887–1962), British Labour politician | Winner |
| 1986 | Richard Mabey | Gilbert White | Gilbert White (1720–1793), English naturalist, ecologist, and ornithologist; author of Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne | Winner |
| 1987 | Christopher Nolan | Under the Eye of the Clock | Christopher Nolan (1965–2009), Irish poet and author | Winner |
| 1988 | A. N. Wilson | Tolstoy | Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), Russian writer, author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina | Winner |
| 1989 | Richard Holmes | Coleridge: Early Visions | Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian | Winner |
| 1990 | Ann Thwaite | AA Milne–His Life | A. A. Milne (1882–1956), British author | Winner |
| 1991 | John Richardson | A Life of Picasso | Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), 20th-century Spanish painter and sculptor | Winner |
| 1992 | Victoria Glendinning | Trollope | Anthony Trollope (1815–1882), English novelist of the Victorian period | Winner |
| 1993 | Andrew Motion | Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life | Philip Larkin (1922–1985), English writer, jazz critic and librarian | Winner |
| 1994 | Brenda Maddox | D H Lawrence: The Married Man | D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930), English writer and poet | Winner |
| 1995 | Roy Jenkins | Gladstone | William Gladstone (1809–1898), British Liberal prime minister | Winner |
| 1995 | Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge | Vera Brittain–A Life | Vera Brittain (1893–1970), English nurse and writer | |
| 1995 | Gitta Sereny | Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth | Albert Speer (1905–1981), Architect and Minister of War Production in Nazi Germany | |
| 1995 | Geoffrey Wansell | Terence Rattigan | Terence Rattigan (1911–1977), British playwright and screenwriter | |
| 1996 | Diarmaid MacCulloch | Thomas Cranmer: A Life | Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), 16th-century English Archbishop of Canterbury and Protestant reformer | Winner |
| 1996 | Rosemary Ashton | George Eliot: A Life | George Eliot (1819–1880), English novelist, essayist, poet, journalist, and translator | Shortlist |
| 1996 | Flora Fraser | The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline | Caroline of Brunswick, (1768–1821), Queen of the United Kingdom and Hanover as the wife of King George IV | Shortlist |
| 1996 | James Knowlson | Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett | Samuel Beckett (1906–1989), Nobel-winning modernist Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, translator and poet | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Graham Robb | Victor Hugo | Victor Hugo (1802–1885), French novelist, poet, and dramatist | Winner |
| 1997 | Jessica Douglas-Home | Violet: The Life and Loves of Violet Gordon Woodhouse | Violet Gordon-Woodhouse (1872–1948), British harpsichordist and clavichordist | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Kate Summerscale | Queen of Whale Cay | Marion "Joe" Carstairs (1900–1993), Wealthy British power boat racer known for their speed, eccentric lifestyle, and gender nonconformity | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Stella Tillyard | Citizen Lord | Lord Edward FitzGerald (1763–1798), Irish revolutionary | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Jenny Uglow | Hogarth, A Life and a World | William Hogarth (1697–1764), English artist and social critic | Shortlist |
| 1998 | Amanda Foreman | Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire | Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1757–1806), English socialite, political organiser, style icon, author, and activist | Winner |
| 1998 | John Bayley | Iris, A memoir of Iris Murdoch | Iris Murdoch (1919–1999), Irish-born British writer and philosopher | Shortlist |
| 1998 | Ian Kershaw | Hitler, Volume One Hubris 1889–1936 | Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany (1889–1945) | Shortlist |
| 1999 | David Cairns | Berlioz Volume Two: Servitude and Greatness | Hector Berlioz (1803–1869), French music composer and conductor | Winner |
| 1999 | Nicholas Shakespeare | Bruce Chatwin | Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989), English writer, novelist and journalist | Shortlist |
| 1999 | Hilary Spurling | Matisse | Henri Matisse (1869–1954), 20th-century French artist | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Lorna Sage | Bad Blood–A Memoir | Lorna Sage (1943–2001), English academic, literary critic and author | Winner |
| 2000 | Claire Harman | Fanny Burney | Fanny Burney (1752–1840), English diarist, novelist and playwright; the first literary woman novelist | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Tim Hilton | John Ruskin: The Later Years | John Ruskin (1819–1900), English writer and art critic | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Ian Kershaw | Hitler: 1936–45 Nemesis | Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany (1889–1945) | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Diana Souhami | Selkirk's Island | Alexander Selkirk (1676–1721), Scottish sailor and castaway | Winner |
| 2001 | Anthony Bailey | Vermeer: A View of Delft | Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), Dutch painter | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Adam Sisman | Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson | James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (1740–1795), author of The Life of Samuel Johnson, which is discussed in Sisman's biography | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Geoffrey Wall | Flaubert: A Life | Gustave Flaubert 1821–1880), French novelist | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Claire Tomalin | Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self | Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), English diarist | Winner |
| 2002 | Miranda Carter | Anthony Blunt: His Lives | Anthony Blunt (1907–1983), British art historian, Soviet spy | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Brenda Maddox | Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA | Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958), British chemist, biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Ysenda Maxtone Graham | The Real Mrs Miniver | Jan Struther (1901–1953), author of the book-turned-film Mrs. Miniver | Shortlist |
| 2003 | DJ Taylor | Orwell: The Life | George Orwell (1903–1950), English author and journalist | Winner |
| 2003 | John Campbell | Margaret Thatcher - Volume Two: The Iron Lady | Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Caroline Moorehead | Martha Gellhorn | Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998), American journalist | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Andrew Wilson | Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith | Patricia Highsmith(1921–1995), American novelist and short story writer | Shortlist |
| 2004 | John Guy | My Heart Is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots | Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587), Queen of Scotland from 1542 to 1567 | Winner |
| 2004 | David McKie | Jabez: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Rogue | Jabez Spencer Balfour (1843–1916), businessman, philanthropist, politician, temperance campaigner and charmer | Shortlist |
| 2004 | John Sutherland | Stephen Spender | Stephen Spender (1909–1995), English poet and man of letters | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Jeremy Treglown | V.S. Pritchett: A Working Life | V.S. Pritchett (1900–1997), British writer and literary critic | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Hilary Spurling | Matisse the Master | Henri Matisse (1869–1954), 20th-century French artist | Winner |
| 2005 | Nigel Farndale | Haw-Haw: The Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce | William and Margaret Joyce (1900s), American-born fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Richard Mabey | Nature Cure | Richard Mabey (born 1941), British writer and broadcaster | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Alexander Masters | Stuart: A Life Backwards | Stuart Clive Shorter, prisoner and a career criminal | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Brian Thompson | Keeping Mum | Brian Thompson | Winner |
| 2006 | Maggie Fergusson | George Mackay Brown: The Life | George Mackay Brown (1921–1996), Scottish poet 1921–1996 | Shortlist |
| 2006 | John Stubbs | John Donne: The Reformed Soul | John Donne (1572–1631), English poet and cleric | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Jo Tatchell | Nabeel's Song: A Family Story of Survival in Iraq | Nabeel Yasin(born 1950), Iraqi poet, journalist and political activist | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Simon Sebag Montefiore | Young Stalin | Joseph Stalin (1878–1953), Leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953 | Winner |
| 2007 | Julie Kavanagh | Rudolf Nureyev | Rudolf Nureyev (1938–1993), Soviet-born ballet dancer and choreographer | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Ben Macintyre | Agent Zigzag | Eddie Chapman (1914–1997), Double agent for Britain during World War 2 | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Michael Simkins | Fatty Batter | Michael Simkins | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Diana Athill | Somewhere Towards the End | Diana Athill (1917–2019), British literary editor, novelist and memoirist | Winner |
| 2008 | Judith Mackrell | Bloomsbury Ballerina | Lydia Lopokova (1892–1981), Russian ballet dancer | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Sathnam Sanghera | If You Don't Know Me By Now: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton | Sathnam Sanghera (born 1976), British journalist and author | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Jackie Wullschlager | Chagall | Marc Chagall (1887–1985), Russian-French artist | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Graham Farmelo | The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius | Paul Dirac (1902–1984), English theoretical physicist | Winner |
| 2009 | William Fiennes | The Music Room | William Fiennes (born 1970), English author | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Simon Gray | Coda | Simon Gray (1936–2008), English playwright and memoirist | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Caroline Moorehead | Dancing to the Precipice | Henriette-Lucy, Marquise de La Tour du Pin Gouvernet (1770–1853), French aristocrat famous for her posthumously published memoirs, Journal d'une femme de 50 ans | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Edmund de Waal | The Hare with Amber Eyes | Ephrussis family, 20th-century Ukrainian Jewish banking and oil dynasty | Winner |
| 2010 | Sarah Bakewell | How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer | Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Michael Frayn | My Father's Fortune | Michael Frayn (born 1933), English playwright and novelist | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Matthew Hollis | Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas | Edward Thomas (1878–1917), a seminal poet in the history of British literature known for his work exploring the notions of disconnection and unsettledness | Winner |
| 2011 | Julia Blackburn | Thin Paths: Journeys In and Around an Italian Mountain Village | Julia Blackburn (born 1948), British author of both fiction and non-fiction | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Patrick Cockburn and Henry Cockburn | Henry’s Demons: Living with Schizophrenia, A Father and Son’s Story | | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Claire Tomalin | Charles Dickens: A Life | Charles Dickens (1812–1870), English writer and social critic | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Mary Talbot and Bryan Talbot | Dotter of Her Father's Eyes | | Winner |
| 2012 | Artemis Cooper | Patrick Leigh-Fermor: An Adventure | Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor (1915–2011), British author and soldier | |
| 2012 | Selina Guinness | The Crocodile by the Door: The Story of a House, a Farm and a Family | Selina Guinness | |
| 2012 | Kate Hubbard | Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household | | |
| 2013 | Lucy Hughes-Hallett | The Pike: Gabriele D'Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War | Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863–1938), Italian writer | Winner |
| 2013 | Gavin Francis | Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins | Gavin Francis (born 1975) Scottish physician and a writer on travel and medical matters | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Thomas Harding | Hanns and Rudolf: The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz | Hanns Alexander (1917–2006), German Jewish refugee who tracked down and arrested the Kommandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Höss | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Olivia Laing | The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink | | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Helen Macdonald | H is for Hawk | | Winner |
| 2014 | John Campbell | Roy Jenkins: a Well-Rounded Life | Roy Jenkins (1920–2003), British politician, historian and writer | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Marion Coutts | The Iceberg: a Memoir | Tom Lubbock, the chief art critic for The Independent | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Henry Marsh | Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery | | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Andrea Wulf | The Invention of Nature | Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), Prussian geographer, naturalist and explorer | Winner |
| 2015 | Robert Douglas-Fairhurst | The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland | Lewis Carroll (1832–1898), British writer, Anglican deacon and photographer, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Thomas Harding | The House by the Lake | | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Ruth Scurr | John Aubrey: My Own Life | John Aubrey (1626–1697), English writer and antiquarian | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Keggie Carew | Dadland: A Journey into Uncharted Territory | | Winner |
| 2016 | John Guy | Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years | | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Hisham Matar | The Return | | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Sylvia Patterson | I’m Not With the Band | | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Rebecca Stott | In the Days of Rain | Rebecca Stott (born 1964), British writer and broadcaster | Winner |
| 2017 | Xiaolu Guo | Once Upon a Time in the East: A Story of Growing Up | | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Caroline Moorehead | A Bold and Dangerous Family: The Rossellis and the Fight Against Mussolini | | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Stephen Westaby | Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon’s Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table | | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Bart van Es | The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found | | Winner |
| 2019 | Jack Fairweather | The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz | Witold Pilecki (1901–1948), Polish underground resistance soldier and World War II concentration camp resistance leader | Winner |
| 2019 | Laura Cumming | On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons | | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Adam Nicolson | The Making of Poetry | Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet, literary critic and philosopher (1772–1834), and William Wordsworth, English Romantic poet (1770–1850) | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Lindsey Hilsum | In Extremis | Marie Colvin, American journalist who worked as a foreign affairs correspondent | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Lee Lawrence | The Louder I Will Sing | | Winner |
| 2021 | John Preston | Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell | | Winner |
| 2021 | Arifa Akbar | Consumed: A Sister’s Story | | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Ed Caesar | The Moth and the Mountain: A True Story of Love, War and Everest | | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Lea Ypi | Free: Coming of Age at the End of History | | Shortlist |