To be given to the best book of literary scholarship on an Australian subject published in the preceding two calendar years. Up till 1994 for an outstanding work of literary scholarship by a young or unestablished author (usually a first book). No nominations are required, though ASAL members are invited to propose books for consideration by the judging panel.

Previous Winners

2009	Noel Rowe, Ethical Investigations: Essays on Australian Literature and Poetics. Ed. Bernadette Brennan (Vagabond, 2008).
2007	Katherine Barnes, The Higher Self in Christopher Brennan’s Poems: Esotericism, Romanticism, Symbolism (Brill, 2006)
2005	jointly awarded: Tanya Dalziell Settler Romance and the Australian Girl (UWA Press, 2004), and Maryrose Casey Creating Frames: Contemporary Indigenous Theatre 1967-1997 (UQP, 2004)
2003	Sylvia Lawson How Simone de Beauvoir Died in Australia
2001	Gillian Whitlock The Intimate Empire: Reading Women’s Autobiography.
1999	Helen Gilbert Sightlines: Race, Gender and Nation in Contemporary Australian Theatre University of Michigan Press
1998	David Carter A Career in Writing:Judah Waten and the cultural politics of a literary career ASAL Literary Studies
1997	Paul Carter The Lie of the Land Faber
1996	Richard Fotheringham In Search of Steele Rudd UQP
1995	Patrick Buckridge The Scandalous Penton UQP
1994	Hazel Rowley Christina Stead Heinemann
1993	Peter Kirkpatrick The Sea Coast of Bohemia UQP
1992	Julian Croft for The Life and Opinions of Tom Collins UQP
1991	Cliff Hanna for The Folly of Spring: a study of the poetry of John Shaw Neilson UQP
1990	Adam Shoemaker for Black Words, White Page UQP
1989	Susan Sheridan for Christina Stead Harvester Wheatsheaf
1988	Paul Carter for The Road to Botany Bay
1987	Graeme Turner for National Fictions
1986	Susan Magary for Unbridling the Tongues of Women
1985	Craig Munro for Wild Man of Letters
1984	Sylvia Lawson for The Archibald Paradox
1983	Drusilla Modjeska for Exiles at Home