Birch is serving as the General Editor of the 2012 edition of the "Oxford Companion to English Literature". Amanda Foreman is a biographer and historian. Educated at Columbia and Oxford, Foreman in 1998 published a biography on Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, that became an international best-seller, winning the 1998 Whitbread Prize for Biography. More recently, she has written the book "A World on Fire" (2010), about British-American relations in the American Civil War. Dan Stevens is an actor and literary critic, best known for his role as Matthew Crawley in the popular drama series "Downton Abbey". Stevens studied for a degree in English Literature at the University of Cambridge, where he was also a member of the Footlights theatrical club. In addition to his acting career, Stevens is also editor-at-large of the on-line literary journal "The Junket", and has a column in "The Sunday Telegraph". He revealed that, in order to have time to read all the required books in the allotted time, he had a special pocket sewn into his Downton costume for an e-reader, that would allow him to read in between takes. Bharat Tandon is an academic, writer, and reviewer. Educated at Cambridge, he has specialised on Jane Austen, on whose work he has written one and edited another book: "Jane Austen and the Morality of Conversation" (2003), and an annotated edition of "Emma" (2012) respectively. After teaching at both Cambridge and Oxford, Tandon in 2012 became a lecturer at the University of East Anglia. He also reviews novels for the "Times Literary Supplement" and "The Daily Telegraph". The longlist, announced on 25 July, contained one previous recipient of the award: Hilary Mantel. Three quarters of the longlist came from the United Kingdom. There was also one longlisted writer from each of India, Malaysia and South Africa. The shortlist was announced on 11 September. Jury chairman Peter Stothard praised the selection by stating that "[w]hat made it really worthwhile was finding we had half a dozen extraordinary and exhilarating pieces of prose." He described the jury's path towards the shortlist as an arduous path of reading and rereading. In the end, he said, "[i]t was the power and depth of prose that settled most of the judges' debates and we found the six books most likely to last and to repay future rereading.