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Betty Trask Prize and Awards

annual literary award

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ794286 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35 who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. Each year the awards total at least £20,000, with normally one author receiving a larger prize amount (£10,000 in very recent years), called the "Prize", and the remainder given to the other nominees, called the "Awards". These were established in 1984 by the Society of Authors at the bequest of the late Betty Trask, a reclusive author of over thirty romance novels. They're given to traditional or romantic novels, rather than those of an experimental style, and either published or unpublished works.

List of award and prize winners

1980s

1990s

2000s

Since 2009, the Betty Trask Prize has been given to a single author; the remaining receive the Betty Trask Award. A blue ribbon () indicates the winner for that year.

Editorial summary

“Betty Trask Prize and Awards” enters the record as annual literary award. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Betty, Trask and Prize can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1984, 2009—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1984. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Betty, Trask and Prize.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Betty Trask Prize and Awards” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Betty, Trask and Prize provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q794286. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1984 and 2009.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Betty Trask Prize and Awards”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Betty Trask Prize and Awards primary sources, Betty Trask Prize and Awards archive and Betty research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Betty Trask Prize and Awards”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Betty Trask Prize and Awards” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.