The
James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are
literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the
Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the
University of Edinburgh in
Scotland,
United Kingdom, the prizes were founded in 1919 by Mrs Janet Coats Black in memory of her late husband, James Tait Black, a partner in the publishing house of
A & C Black Ltd. Prizes are awarded in three categories: Fiction, Biography and Drama.