The Sidney Prize Honors the Best Nonfiction Work Published in English

Sidney Wertimer, a longtime professor at Hamilton College, was many things: an academic, a scholar, an activist and, perhaps most of all, a teacher. His legacy lives on in his students and in the prizes and endowed professorships in his name at both Hamilton and Mercer University.

Known as “Sid” to his students, Wertimer had an extraordinary effect on the people who came under his guidance. He had a profound influence on the field of history in particular, but his reach extended to other fields as well. He also inspired others to pursue their passions in the arts, philanthropy and education.

Sid exemplified what a historian should be — a scholar with a passion for his subject and the ability to communicate it clearly to the broader public. It is no surprise, then, that he earned so many of the top literary awards in his lifetime.

Each year, the Sidney prize recognizes the best nonfiction work published in English during the previous calendar year. This includes articles, books and other works of nonfiction that have received a great deal of attention from the general reading public or are highly regarded by scholars. It is one of the oldest and most prestigious literary prizes in the world.

A list of past winners can be found here.

Winners have included such authors as Hilton Als writing for The New York Times and Ed Yong writing for The Atlantic, as well as writers from upper-echelons of publications like The Weekly Standard and the Washington Post. In the past decade, two of the winners have even written novels.

The prize was established in 1967 by Miss A.M. Ardern in memory of her brother, the late Prof. Philip Sidney Ardern, of Auckland University College. It was augmented by subscriptions and gifts. The aim of the prize is to stimulate research and study in Old and Middle English, but it is not restricted to that subject.

This year’s judging panel of Patrick Lenton, Alice Bishop and Sara Saleh chose a shortlist of eight pieces and two runners-up from over 500 entries. The winning entry, Claire Aman’s “Who Rattles the Night?”, will be published in the 2023 edition of Overland and the runners-up will be published online.

The Sidney Edelstein Prize, named for the historian of dyes and a founding figure in the Dexter Chemical Corporation, honors an outstanding book in the history of technology that is of interest to both general readers and specialists in the field. The prize was previously known as the Leonardo da Vinci Prize, and it is sponsored by SHOT in partnership with the Dexter Chemical Corporation.