George Washington Book Prize: a presidential sum

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The George Washington Book Prize has announced the finalists for its 2009 award: Annette Gordon-Reed’s ‘The Hemingses of Monticello,’ Kevin J. Hayes’ ‘The Road to Monticello’ and Jane Kamensky’s ‘The Exchange Artist.’ The prize is awarded to a book on early American history by Washington College, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and George Washington’s Mount Vernon, where the winner will be announced on May 28.

It’s highly likely that all the authors will attend the ceremony -- the prize comes with an award of $50,000.

While that might not pay off your mortgage, it’s quite a sum in the world of book prizes. National Book Award winners -- Gordon-Reed is one -- get $10,000. So do winners of the Pulitzer Prize. The Nobel is more, but it requires a lifetime of work -- and you’re up against every writer on the globe.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History awards two other book prizes. The Frederick Douglass Prize is for an outstanding book on slavery or abolition ($25,000) and the Lincoln Prize for a book on Abraham Lincoln or the Civil War Era ($50,000). The Lincoln Prize was first awarded in 1991 and the Douglass prize in 1999; the George Washington Book Prize is the youngest, having been around only since 2005. So it’s not really the grandaddy of them all.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Portrait: George Washington, by Gilbert Stuart.