Picture credit: BookBrunch
We are delighted to announce that celebrated biographer Anne de Courcy is this year’s recipient of the Biographers’ Club Exceptional Contribution Prize, recognizing her exceptional career encompassing eleven books over the past four decades.
Anne was presented with the award at the Biographers’ Club Christmas Party on Monday (11 December 2023), held at Albany in Piccadilly, London. Club chairperson Jane Ridley remarked on Anne’s dedication to the craft across her many works, citing in particular de Courcy's ‘ground-breaking’ SNOWDON: THE BIOGRAPHY, as well as the support she has offered over the years to both aspiring and established biographers.
The Biographers’ Club was founded in 1997 to support, promote and connect literary biographers throughout the research and writing process and their careers. The Exceptional Contribution prize has been awarded by the Club annually since 2009, with Anne joining the ranks of honourees including Michael Holroyd, Selina Hastings, Claire Tomalin, Hermione Lee, and 2022 winner A.N. Wilson.
About Anne de Courcy
Anne de Courcy is a well-known writer, journalist and book reviewer. In the 1970s she was Woman’s Editor on the London Evening News until its demise in 1980, when she joined the Evening Standard as a columnist and feature-writer. In 1982 she joined the Daily Mail as a feature writer, with a special interest in historical subjects, leaving in 2003 to concentrate on books, on which she has talked widely both here and in the United States.
A critically-acclaimed and best-selling author, she believes that as well as telling the story of its subject’s life, a biography should depict the social history of the period, since so much of action and behaviour is governed not simply by obvious financial, social and physical conditions but also by underlying, often unspoken, contemporary attitudes, assumptions, standards and moral codes.
Anne sits on the committee of the Biographer’s Club, and was previously the chairperson of the group. Her recent biographies, all of which have been serialised, include THE VICEROY’S DAUGHTERS, DIANA MOSLEY, DEBS AT WAR and SNOWDON; THE BIOGRAPHY, written with the agreement and co-operation of the Earl of Snowdon. Based on Anne’s book, a Channel 4 documentary Snowdon and Margaret: Inside a Royal Marriage, was broadcast in June 2008.
THE FISHING FLEET: HUSBAND-HUNTING IN THE RAJ, was published in July 2012. Her book, MARGOT AT WAR published in November 2014, was shortlisted for the Paddy Power Political Book of the Year award. Her latest book is FIVE LOVE AFFAIRS AND A FRIENDSHIP (published in the US as MAGNIFICENT REBEL), a biography of Jazz Age icon Nancy Cunard.
Praise for Anne de Courcy
‘De Courcy paints a rich canvas.’ – The Sunday Times
‘Meticulously researched and sparklingly witty’ – Jane Shilling, Must Reads, Daily Mail
‘Anne de Courcy combines the perseverance of a social historian with the panache of the novelist’ – The Times
‘Intoxicating descriptions… meticulous detail’ – New York Times
‘She can make you laugh or break your heart, but she will never bore you.’ – Martin Rubin, The Washington Times
‘Anne de Courcy has a humorous tone, which I find very engaging, and she draws research from letters, memories and diaries.’ – Santa Montefiore, Good Housekeeping, ‘The Books That Changed My Life’