- Paul Bailey
- Michael Baldwin
- Iain Banks
- John Banville
- Richard Barber
- Juliet Barker
- Pat Barker CBE
- Sebastian Barker
- Frank Barlow CBE FBA FRHistS
- Correlli Barnett CBE
- Sebastian Barry
- Jacques Barzun
- Susan Bassnett
- Jonathan Bate CBE FBA
- Nina Bawden CBE
- Martin Bax
- John Bayley CBE FBA
- C.A. Bayly FBA FRHistS
- Dame Gillian Beer DBE FBA
- Antony Beevor
- Rosalind Belben
- Anne Olivier Bell
- Bernard Bergonzi
- Christopher Bigsby
- Dea Birkett
- Julia Blackburn
- Malorie Blackman
- Ronald Blythe, Benson Medallist
- James T. Boulton FBA
- William Boyd CBE
- Melvyn Bragg (Lord Bragg)
- Piers Brendon
- Raymond Briggs
- Robin Briggs
- Michael Brock CBE FRHistS
- Hugh Brogan
- Anita Brookner CBE
- Alan Brownjohn
- James Buchan
- Brian Burland
- John Burnside
- Marilyn Butler FBA
- A.S. Byatt (Dame Antonia Duffy DBE)
Adam Foulds – Year of election 2010
Adam Foulds is a poet and novelist who won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award following the 2007 publication of his first novel, The Truth About These Strange Times. The Broken Word (2008), a remarkable narrative poem which was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, won the Costa Poetry Award. His second novel, The Quickening Maze, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Foulds is noted for his extraordinary gift for language and his forensic imagination.