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Dr. Robert Morrison of the Department of English has been nominated for a top British literary award for his biography of Thomas De Quincey, The English Opium Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey.

“I am gobsmacked,” Morrison said in a news release. “Being shortlisted for the oldest literary prize in Britain seems impossible. I am absolutely elated.”

The James Tait Black Memorial Prize was created in 1919 and is awarded annually by the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. There are two £10,000 prizes: one for biography and one for fiction. "They are the only awards of their kind to be presented by a university and have acquired an international reputation for recognizing excellence in biography and fiction that continues today," according to the website dedicated to the prize.