The Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work, established in 1977, is a literary award presented as part of the Edgar Awards for a nonfiction critical or biographical hardcover, paperback, or electronic book.

To be eligible, biographical books should be "biographies of mystery writers or other notable practitioners of the genre, not to criminals." Criminal biographies are eligible for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime.

The Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work winners are listed below.

Recipients

2000s +2000s Best Critical/Biographical Work winnersYear Author Title Result 2008, Daniel Stashower, and Charles FoleyArthur Conan Doyle: A Life in LettersWinner2009Dr. Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to his Tell-Tale StoriesWinner

2010s +2010s Best Critical/Biographical Work winnersYear Author Title Result 2010Winner2011Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History WinnerShortlistAgatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: 50 Years of Mysteries in the Making Shortlist and David A. CrowderSherlock Holmes for Dummies Shortlist and Hank Wagner (editors)Thrillers: 100 Must Reads Shortlist2012On Conan Doyle; or, The Whole Art of StorytellingWinner, Arne de Keijzer, and John-Henri HolmbergShortlistAgatha Christie: Murder in the Making ShortlistDetecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective FilmShortlist and Walter SrebnickScripting Hitchcock: Psycho, The Birds and Marnie Shortlist2013WinnerRaymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe: The Hard-Boiled Detective Transformed Shortlist (editor)Books To Die For: The World’s Greatest Mystery Writers on the World’s Greatest Mystery Novels Shortlist (editor)In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American HeroShortlist2014America Is Elsewhere: The Noir Tradition in the Age of Consumer CultureWinnerMaigret, Simenon and France: Social Dimensions of the Novels and StoriesShortlistPimping Fictions: African American Crime Literature and the Untold Story of Black Pulp Publishing ShortlistIan Fleming ShortlistMiddlebrow Feminism in Classic British Detective Fiction Shortlist2015Poe-Land: The Hallowed Haunts of Edgar Allan PoeWinnerShortlistJames Ellroy: A Companion to the Mystery FictionShortlistKiss the Blood Off My Hands: Classic Film NoirShortlistJudges & Justice & Lawyers & Law: Exploring the Legal Dimensions of Fiction and FilmShortlist2016WinnerShortlist and Tom NolanMeanwhile There Are Letters: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald ShortlistGoldeneye: Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming’s Jamaica ShortlistShortlist2017Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted LifeWinnerAlfred Hitchcock: A Brief Life ShortlistEncyclopedia of Nordic Crime: Works and Authors of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden Since 1967 ShortlistSomething in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula Shortlist2018Chester B. Himes: A BiographyWinnerFrom Holmes to Sherlock: The Story of the Men and Women who Created an Icon ShortlistManderley Forever: A Biography of Daphne du Maurier ShortlistMurder in the Closet: Essays on Queer Clues in Crime Fiction Before Stonewall ShortlistArthur and Sherlock: Conan Doyle and the Creation of Holmes Shortlist2019Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920sWinnerShortlistDead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession ShortlistMark X: Who Killed Huck Finn’s Father? ShortlistAgatha Christie: A Mysterious Life Shortlist

2020s +2020s Best Critical/Biographical Work winners and shortlistsYear Author Title Result 2020Hitchcock and the CensorsWinnerBeyond the Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John BuchanShortlistShortlistMedieval Crime Fiction: A Critical Overview ShortlistShortlist2021Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind HitchcockWinnerHowdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club ShortlistIan Rankin: A Companion to the Mystery & Fiction Shortlist and Brian Cliff Guilt Rules All: Irish Mystery, Detective, and Crime Fiction ShortlistThis Time Next Year We’ll be Laughing Shortlist2022WinnerAgatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World ShortlistShortlistTony Hillerman: A LifeShortlistShortlist 2023Winner and J. C. Bernthal (editors)ShortlistShortlistShortlistAgatha Christie: An Elusive Woman Shortlist2024Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James EllroyWinnerPerplexing Plots: Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of MurderShortlist and James L. Traylor Spillane: King of Pulp FictionShortlistShortlistFallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe Shortlist2025James Sallis: A Companion to the Mystery FictionWinnerAmerican Noir Film: From The Maltese Falcon to Gone GirlShortlistOrganized Crime on Page and Screen: Portrayals in Hit Novels, Films, and Television ShowsShortlistOn Edge: Gender and Genre in the Work of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh BrackettShortlistIan Fleming: The Complete ManShortlist2026Edgar Allan Poe: A LifeWinnerV is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death ShortlistShortlistCooler Than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard ShortlistCriss-Cross: The Making of Hitchcock’s Dazzling, Subversive Masterpiece Strangers on a Train Shortlist

References