One of the things I enjoy doing is looking back at past literary prizes. We’ve all heard of the Booker, but there are all manner of other prizes out there – and it’s not a new thing. While awards are getting increasingly niche (with specific demographics attached to the criteria) or controversially broader (the Booker allowing US entrants), there are a few with a history of being “the best book”.
One of my favourites is the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, which is (to my mind) a more reliable indicator of quality than the Booker. And today I properly explored the Femina – Vie Heureuse Prize. This isn’t to be confused with the Prix Femina, which you have heard of, though it is related.
The Prix Femina is a French literary prize that has been going for a century and more. The Femina – Vie Heureuse Prize (also known as the Femina Prize) was an offshoot for English literature that was set up in 1920. It only lasted until 1939, but – in doing so – covered my favourite two decades of writing. You have to dig around a bit to find a list of the winners, but thankfully they’re listed by the National Archives, of all places. And here they are!
1920 William an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton
1921 The Splendid Fairing by Constance Holmes
1922 Dangerous Ages by Rose Macaulay
1923 Gruach by Gordon Bottomley
1924 Roman Pictures by Percy Lubbock
1925 A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
1926 Precious Bane by Mary Webb
1927 Adam’s Breed by Radclyffe Hall
1928 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
1929 Gallion’s Reach by H.M. Tomlinson
1930 Portrait in a Mirror by Charles Morgan
1931 A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
1932 Tobit Transplanted by Stella Benson
1933 Small Town by Bradda Field
1934 Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
1935 Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins
1936 The Root and the Flower by L.H. Myers
1937 Faith, Hope, no Charity by Margaret Lane
1938 The Porch by Richard Church
1939 Count Belisarius by Robert Graves
What an interesting list of titles! The first one might have reminded you why the Femina Prize rang a bell – the first winner of the prize was also the first Persephone title. It’s also one of only five books I’ve read here (along with Macaulay, Woolf, Forster, and Gibbons), though I’ve read other books by L.H. Myers, Elizabeth Jenkins, Stella Benson, Radclyffe Hall, and Charles Morgan.
And then there are names that, as far as I know, have disappeared from most readers’ memories altogether – has anybody read Gordon Bottomley, Bradda Field, or Percy Lubbock? Having said that, those are the only three names here that I didn’t recognise – so it’s a pretty impressive snapshot of the period. Until you have a moment to think about names that aren’t there, of course, and which you might expect to appear – D.H. Lawrence, Evelyn Waugh, Christopher Isherwood, Aldous Huxley. I’m quite pleased that they’re not. Not because I dislike them, but because it makes for a more interesting list – because they aren’t the names that a jury would choose today.
Have you read any of the list? Any you want to investigate? And do you have any other prizes to recommend?
That *is* an interesting list! I’ve only read three of the actual books (though I have read other books by some of the authors). Interesting how some have been picked up again more recently republished while others have disappeared into oblivion! :D
Maybe some of the others will turn up! But I feel like the rural novels might not…
What a good list for future reference. I have read five of them, so that leaves me a lot more to look up!
Great :)
I’ve only read for of the books on the list, but I am very slowly working my way through the James Tait Black Memorial list. I can’t see me ever getting to the end of that one though.
Oh that’s a fun project! I’ve darted around it, but might see if I can do something more targeted.
It is an interesting list! I’ve read five as well (Forster, Woolf, Hughes, Gibbons, Graves.)
I know Percy Lubbock for The Craft of Fiction, which has been sitting by my reading chair for a while with a bookmark at page five … ;-) It seems he did a new edition in 1951, & I have a reprint from 1965, so it had some success at least.
Interesting! Is the bookmark at p.5 because you weren’t enjoying it or is it more of a gradual read?
It’s mostly a sign that I’m distractible, I’m afraid. That’s really only the end of the introduction to the second edition; I haven’t given it a fair shake one way or the other. In my defense ;-) it’s a relatively new book to the pile–I got it at a charity sale last fall.
But I had heard of him before, and I see from other commenters, he doesn’t seem quite forgotten entirely.
I’ve read some of the them, probably the same ones that others have (Macaulay, Forster, Woolf, Gibbons and Graves, and A High Wind in Jamaica rings a bell, perhaps because it was made into a film?
I like the James Tait too: I’ve read quite a few of those, perhaps because the winners made their way into Australian bookshops? Remember when the only books we knew about were the ones in the bookshops, or were reviewed in whatever newspaper we read? How times have changed!
A High Wind in Jamaica is on my shelves, and I know it because there’s quite a discussion of it in Diary of a Provincial Lady, so that might be why it rings a bell!
What a great list, I’ve read five of them. I wonder if those lost ones are in that book of lost authors book we’ve both read. Lubbock’s name rings a bell!
Lubbock’s not in The Book of Forgotten Authors.
Hmm maybe it is his work on literary theory that rang a vague bell, then!
Must check the others…
I’ve read NONE of these but now I want to investigate them ALL!
Excellent :D
Ha, I had no idea there was a Femina Prize that was distinct from the Prix Femina! How fascinating! I’ve only read the obvious big names (Woolf, Forster, Gibbons, Robert Graves), so that’s quite a bit to explore.
I wonder why it folded? A shame!
I’ve read four and I have a copy of Dangerous Ages because Thomas at Hogglestock raved about it.
But Precious Bane? Isn’t that the book you found so terrible? And possibly just the sort of book Stella Gibbons was parodying in Cold Comfort Farm? :D
I’ve just gone back to Thomas’s recommendation, which is brief but effusive! It is high up there on my Macaulay list (after Crewe Train and Keeping Up Appearances).
And it was Gone To Earth by Webb that I tried, but I imagine this is very much in a similar vein!