Details can be obtained from the Royal Cornwall Museum. It is awarded for a work of unpublished fiction, preferably with an association with Cornwall. Additionally, the Winston Graham Historical Prize was initiated as part of the Centenary Celebrations, funded by a legacy from the author and supported by Pan Macmillan.

The Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro, Cornwall had an exhibition devoted to his life and works ( Poldark's Cornwall: The Life and Times of Winston Graham) from mid-June to mid-September 2008 to celebrate the centenary of his birth, coinciding with re-publication of the Poldark novels by Pan Macmillan. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Private Man, was published in September of that year. Graham died on 10 July 2003 at the age of 95, at his house, 'Abbotswood' in Buxted, East Sussex. They had two children, economist Andrew Graham and Rosamund Barteau. She saw everything and remembered it all.' Jean died in 1992. Graham's daughter said, 'Father was the author but my mother helped with the details because she was very observant. She often helped Graham with ideas for his books, and the character of Demelza, in his Poldark series, was based in part on her. In September 1939, Graham married Jean Williamson, having first met her in 1926 when she was 13 years old. In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. He was a member of the Society of Authors from 1945, chairman of the Society's Management Committee from 1967 to 1969 and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lived in Perranporth from October 1925 until January 1960, then briefly, during the summer of 1960, in the south of France before finally settling in East Sussex. ĭuring his youth, Graham was a keen tennis player and recorded in his diaries how many sets he played each day. He had wanted to be a writer from an early age and, following the death of his father, he was supported by his mother while he wrote novels at home in longhand and attempted to get them published.

When he was 17 years old, Winston moved to Perranporth, Cornwall, where he lived for 34 years. Graham's father, Albert Grime, was a prosperous tea importer and grocer, but became incapacitated by a stroke. As a child, Winston contracted pneumonia, and on medical advice was educated at a local day school rather than Manchester Grammar School which his father had in mind for him. Graham was born in Victoria Park, Manchester, on 30 June 1908. Winston Graham was the author's pseudonym until he changed his name by deed poll from Grime to Graham on. Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE, born Winston Grime (30 June 1908 – 10 July 2003), was an English novelist best known for the Poldark series of historical novels set in Cornwall, though he also wrote numerous other works, including contemporary thrillers, period novels, short stories, non-fiction and plays.

First poldark book