He was, quite probably, Britain's first sandal-wearing socialist. But while George Orwell dismissed him as a quack, many others were inspired by the gay visionary Edward Carpenter who spoke up for female emancipation, animal rights and free love. Tonight, biography of a man who has largely been forgotten was shortlisted for the UK's oldest literary award.
Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love by the pioneering feminist writer Sheila Rowbotham is in the running in the biography section of the James Tait Black Memorial prizes which were created 90 years ago. Orwell once spoke despairingly of the left attracting "every fruit juice drinker, nudist, sandal wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist and feminist in England." Carpenter was all of those and it was obvious who Orwell was having a go at. But while he exasperated some, he inspired others, including EM Forster who sat down and wrote Maurice after encountering Carpenter in 1912.
The other shortlisted biographies are Christopher Bigsby's book on Arthur Miller up until 1962; Michael Holroyd's A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and their Remarkable Families; Gerald Martin's biography of Gabriel García Márquez; and Jackie Wullschlager's book on the great modernist painter Marc Chagall.
The prizes are unusual in being decided on by students and academics. Edinburgh University postgraduates read the books and write reports before an academic comes up with the shortlist and decides the winner. There is also an advisory panel that includes Radio 4's James Naughtie and writer Alexander McCall-Smith.
This year the biography winner will be decided by Professor Laura Marcus. "Yes, it is rather frightening and it's going to be agonising," she said. "But I will be talking to other people. In biography you're quite often torn between books where the depth of research is extraordinary but sometimes the subject has been lost to view."
Marcus said it had been a vintage year for biography with many that had been long expected, finally being published including Martin's book on Márquez which had been 18 years in the writing.
All five are competing for a £10,000 prize that will be announced at the Edinburgh book festival in August.
An identical amount will go to the fiction prize winner. The five shortlisted novels were named as A Mercy by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison; Sputnik Caledonia by Andrew Crumey; Pilcrow by Adam Mars-Jones; Mohammed Hanif's A Case of Exploding Mangoes, which was shortlisted for last year's Guardian First Book Award; and Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture, which won the 2009 Costa book of the year award.
The winner will be decided by Professor Colin Nicholson who praised the shortlisted authors for their "superb story-telling skills and remarkable variety".
The prizes were founded in 1919 by Janet Coats to commemorate her late husband, the publisher James Tait Black, and his love of good books. They have been organised by the University of Edinburgh ever since and the roll-call of previous winners includes DH Lawrence, Graham Greene, Salman Rushdie and Zadie Smith.
