An annual prize of £1,000 will be
awarded for writing on themes or topics broadly consistent with the work of
Richard Jefferies. It has to be published (not re-published) within the
calendar year. First English translations of works are eligible. E-books are
excluded from the award.
Nominations may be made by anyone
including publishers. Note: unlike the Wainwright Prize, no fees are requested from publishers at any stage, making the competition more accessible for small companies. Publishers are requested to send a
copy of the nominated book to:
Richard Jefferies Society, c/o Valezina, 112 Westerfield Road, Ipswich, IP4 2XW.
and to:
Richard Jefferies Society, c/o Granham West, Granham Hill, Marlborough, SN8 4DN.
Decisions about the Prize will be made by a judging panel drawn from the Society's Executive Council and a representative of the White Horse Bookshop. The judges are not paid and their decision is final. The right not to make an award in a given year is reserved. The short-list is drawn up in February and the winner should be announced by June.
The closing date for nominations is by 1
December. Please send your nominations by email as early as possible
and include covering information. Late nominations will not be accepted. Please note that nominations can be made from January and it would be much appreciated if publishers submit titles as soon as possible after the publication date.
The nomination list for titles published in 2020 is now closed. 34 books have been submitted.
Good luck to all concerned.
The shortlist was announced on 14 January 2021 as follows:
· Orchard. A Year in England’s Eden by Benedict Macdonald and Nicholas Gates. [Collins]
· Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty. [Little Toller]
· The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus by Michael McCarthy, Jeremy Mynott and Peter Marren. [Hodder]
· The Swallow: A Biography by Stephen Moss. [Square Peg]
· Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. [Bodley Head]
· The Gospel of the Eels: A Father, a Son and the World’s Most Enigmatic Fish by Patrik Svensson. [Picador]
CONGRATULATIONS.
2019 winner: Benedict Macdonald - Rebirding: Rewilding Britain and Its Birds
 |
| Ben Macdonald |
The judges voted on 4 June 2020 to award the prize to Ben Macdonald -- particularly note-worthy as this is his first book. Prof. Barry Sloan, the Chair of the Judges Panel said:
Read a review of the book by Richard Stewart here.
There were an unprecedented number of nominations for 2019 publications that marked the increasing interest and concern for the natural world. The short-list was agreed on 16 January 2020 as follows and all were worthy contestants:
In a year when there
were several strong contenders for the prize, Benedict Macdonald's Rebirding
impressed the judges by its ambition and scope and by the extensive
research which underpins the book’s lively and thought-provoking
engagement with some of the key environmental issues in the UK and their impact
on our wildlife―and especially on bird life. Rebirding not only highlights how modern industrialised agriculture
and land management practices have depleted biodiversity and bird life in
Britain and compares the situation here with the much more favourable position
in other parts of Europe; it also challenges the efficacy of some of the work
of conservation organisations, insisting that small scale successes with some
endangered species of birds will never result in sufficiently large populations
to be viable, and that there is an urgent need for a network of links between
conservation areas across the country. However, Macdonald is not defeatist, and
nor is he afraid to be controversial. He argues for the game-changing potential
of radical schemes of change, such as the rewilding of economically inefficient
areas like those worked by Welsh hill farmers, or in the Cairngorms, the
revision of the environmentally destructive land management of grouse moors to
ensure a flourishing diversity among wild life that is threatened and
dwindling, and the encouragement of new economic and employment opportunities
in the countryside through the promotion of ecotourism. You may not agree with
all of Benedict Macdonald’s ideas and arguments, but his book is a passionate,
informed and important intervention in one of the most pressing concerns
of our time, and it deserves serious attention and a wide readership.
Read a review of the book by Richard Stewart here.
There were an unprecedented number of nominations for 2019 publications that marked the increasing interest and concern for the natural world. The short-list was agreed on 16 January 2020 as follows and all were worthy contestants:
The Hidden World
of the Fox by
Adele Brand, (William Collins).
Incredible
Journeys by David Barrie, (Hodder and Stoughton).
The Nature of
Spring by Jim Crumley, (Saraband).
On the Marsh by Simon Barnes, (Simon and Schuster).
Rebirding by Benedict Macdonald (Pelagic Publishing).
Working with
Nature by Jeremy Purseglove (Profile Books).
2018 winner: Isabella Tree - Wilding:
the Return of Nature to a British Farm
The judges voted on 16 May 2019 to
award the prize to Isabella Tree. The appeal of this book was summed up by one
of the judges saying that it was a publication that Richard Jefferies himself
would have strongly supported.
The short-list was agreed on 13 January 2019 as follows:
·
Kings
of the Yukon: an Alaskan river journey by Adam Weymouth, (Particular Books)
·
The
Bumblebee Flies Anyway by Kate Bradbury (Bloomsbury Wildlife)
·
Wilding by Isabella Tree (Picador)
·
Our
Place,
by Mark Cocker (Jonathan Cape)
Isabella Tree gave an illustrated talk
about her prize-winning book at St Mary's Church, Marlborough to a
capacity audience of 180 people on Thursday 25 July 2019 (the hottest day
of the year) and was then presented with her award by Barry Sloan, Chair of the
Richard Jefferies Society.
2017 winner: Adam Nicolson - The
Seabird's Cry
On 11 June 2018, the Richard Jefferies
Society and the White Horse Bookshop announced that the winner of the annual
Writer's Prize was Adam Nicolson for The Seabird's
Cry, published by William Collins. John Price, Chairman of The Richard Jefferies
Society, said: ‘It is ambitious, topical and original,
and written throughout in an engaging and appealing style. It was easily the
most readable, moving and sophisticated of all the short-listed books.’
The shortlist was agreed on 3 February 2018 was as follows:
·
Beyond
Spring by
Matthew Oates published by Fair Acre Press
·
A
Sweet Wild Note by
Richard Smyth published by Elliott and Thompson
·
Waiting
for the Albino Dunnock by
Richardson Rosamond published by the Orion Publishing Group
·
The
Seabird’s Cry by
Adam Nicolson published by William Collins
·
The
January Man by
Christopher Somerville published by Penguin Random House
Adam
Nicolson, 4 August 2018
White
Horse Bookshop
Presentation
of award.
2016 winner: Richard Fortey - The
Wood for the Trees
·
The
Nature of Autumn,
by Jim Crumley, published by Saraband.
·
The
Running Hare,
by John Lewis-Stempel, published by Doubleday.
·
Six
Facets of Light,
by Ann Wroe, published by Jonathan Cape.
·
Walking
Through Spring,
by Graham Hoyland, published by William Collins.
·
The
Wood for the Trees,
by Richard Fortey, published by William Collins.
At an event at The White Horse Bookshop
on 3 June 2017, the prize was awarded to British palaeontologist, natural
historian, writer and broadcaster Richard Fortey and best met the criterion of
reflecting themes
or topics broadly consistent with Jefferies’ writing.
 |
Left to right: Angus Maclennan, John Price,
Richard Fortey
|
John Price, Chairman of the Richard
Jefferies Society said: “With a strong sense of place in Fortey's
recording of the passage of the year in the woodland, we felt that the book was
a worthy successor to Jefferies' writing.”
Angus Maclennan, Manager of The White
Horse Bookshop added: “In this golden era for nature writing we are delighted
to award Richard Fortey for his intimate portrait of our environment and our
place within it. It strikes the perfect balance between science and
sensibility.”
2015 winner: John Lister Kaye - Gods of the Morning
The short-list was:
·
Common
Ground,
by Rob Cowen, published by Hutchinson;
·
Gods
of the Morning,
by John Lister-Kaye, published by Canongate;
·
The
Moth Snowstorm,
by Michael McCarthy, published by John Murray.
The final decision of the Panel was that the prize
should be awarded to John Lister-Kaye (pictured left), for Gods of the
Morning.
This book was felt to be lyrically written, with a
true naturalist’s eye for the changing seasons and times of day; the hardships
experienced by man and beast in the harshest winters; and his own personal
encounters with a wide range of wildlife from ravens to young spiders. The
extensive studies of rooks – (from the bathroom of Lister-Kaye's house!) –
reminded the judges of Richard Jefferies' observations on the same species;
observations brought together into one book by an enterprising publisher. Gods
of the Morning is a book by a man who is as familiar with his local
Scottish wildlife and countryside as Richard Jefferies had been with his
Wiltshire local environment; and both authors also had the ability to describe
some of the local human population in deft terms. An outstanding first
winner of the Richard Jefferies Society Writers’ Prize, Lister-Kaye is able to
convey the joy of nature in an uncomplicated and eloquent fashion.
