Excellent English Prize
The Queen's English Society Prize for Excellent English
This prize is awarded annually by the Queen’s English Society (QES) for excellent English prose. The aims are: to encourage the production of excellent English, to publicise its existence, and to provide good examples through reprinting some of the best entries in our journal, Quest, if the authors and publishers give permission. It was founded to honour Arthur and Marjorie Goodchild for their generous benefaction to the QES, and was originally called the Goodchild Prize for Excellent English.
All entries must be of prose, fiction or non-fiction, published in a specified year, with a named author or authors, and must be sent in by members of the QES. The writers need not be British or members of the society, and may be professional writers or amateurs. Any long works, such as books, must be represented by a short extract only. All entries were read by each of the three judges, who are members of the QES and experienced writers with diverse backgrounds and tastes in writing.
Winner 2020
The Twenty-Third Queen's English Society Prize for Excellent English The Winner Laura Cumming for On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons. Chapter 1. The Beach. Chatto and Windus, 2019. This is an extraordinary evocation of a place and an era. The descriptions of the landscape are continually woven into the actions of the people who inhabit it. It is an excellent... read more »
Winner 2019
The Twenty-Second Queen’s English Society Prize for Excellent English The Joint Winners Rev. Dr Peter Mullen Trigger warnings and safe spaces make sure young people are never challenged by ideas (The Free Nation, September 2018, The Freedom Association). This forceful piece is full of lively imagery and excellent, logical arguments, concisely put. Here is just one bizarre example among thousands. Theology students at Glasgow... read more »
Winner 2018
The 22nd Queen’s English Society’s Prize for Excellent English The Winner Robert Peal, for Progressively Worse: The burden of bad ideas in British Schools (Civitas, 2014). This was judged from the Introduction, which described the core themes of ‘progressive education’: education should be child-centred; knowledge is not central to education; strict discipline and moral education are oppressive; socio-economic background dictates success.... read more »
Winner 2017
The 21st Queen’s English Society’s Prize for Excellent English The Winner Boris Johnson, for The weather prophets should be chucked into the deep end. The Daily Telegraph, 24/6/2013, p 18. This is written in his usual amusing style, yet with an underlying seriousness to make the reader see things as he does. He has an astonishing ability to conjure up images... read more »
Winner 2016
The 20th Queen’s English Society’s Prize for Excellent English The winner Caroline Shearing, for Take to the skies in the Atacama. (The Daily Telegraph Travel, 15/10/2016) This was a superb piece of exemplary English, with a lyrical and evocative description of a balloon trip over the Atacama Desert of Chile. It begins: Flames roared directly overhead as a diamond of... read more »
Winner 2015
The Nineteenth Queen’s English Society’s Prize for Excellent English The Winner Robert Peal, for Progressively Worse: The burden of bad ideas in British Schools (Civitas, 2014). This was judged from the Introduction, which described the core themes of ‘progressive education’: education should be child-centred; knowledge is not central to education; strict discipline and moral education are oppressive; socio-economic background dictates success.... read more »
Winner 2014
The Eighteenth Queen’s English Society’s Prize for Excellent English The Winner Robert Peal, for Progressively Worse: The burden of bad ideas in British Schools (Civitas, 2014). This was judged from the Introduction, which described the core themes of ‘progressive education’: education should be child-centred; knowledge is not central to education; strict discipline and moral education are oppressive; socio-economic background dictates success.... read more »
Winner 2013
The Seventeenth Arthur and Marjorie Goodchild Prize for Excellent English The Winner Boris Johnson, for The weather prophets should be chucked into the deep end.The Daily Telegraph, 24/6/2013, p 18. This is written in his usual amusing style, yet with an underlying seriousness to make the reader see things as he does. He has an astonishing ability to conjure up images... read more »
Winner 2012
The Sixteenth Goodchild Prize for Excellent English The Winner Boris Johnson, for Not a single penny more for the EU’s begging bowl. The Daily Telegraph, 19/11/2012, p 33. This piece was placed first by two judges. It is lively, topical, well-researched and heartfelt, with Boris’s typical Man-of-the-People touches, including the occasional cliché. He builds his arguments and individual sentences well. When David... read more »
Winner 2011
The Fifteenth Goodchild Prize for Excellent English The Winner Allison Pearson, for Thou shalt happily riot to your heart’s content. The Daily Telegraph, 8/12/2011, p 33. This piece was placed first by two judges. It is a brilliantly and passionately argued attack on the Archbishop of Canterbury for his Guardian article in which he largely exonerated the people who rioted in... read more »