The British Fantasy Awards (BFA) are awarded annually by the British Fantasy Society (BFS).
In 1971, Ramsey Campbell suggested that the British Fantasy Society should present an award in honor of August Derleth, who died the same year. In 1972, Michael Moorcock received the inaugural August Derleth Fantasy Award for his novel The Knight of the Swords. In later years, the number of award categories increased. In 1976, the BFS renamed the awards from the August Derleth Fantasy Awards to the British Fantasy Awards, maintaining that the Best Novel category would retain the August Derleth award title.
In 2012, the awards were reorganized. From this point forward, the awards were chosen from the shortlist by juries, rather than popular vote amount BFS members and convention attendees. The best novel category, then known as the August Derleth Award, was divided. The new awards included the British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel, retaining the title of August Derleth Award, and the British Fantasy Award for Best Fantasy Novel, the Robert Holdstock Award.
The membership of the BFS vote to determine the shortlists of the awards, the winners being decided by juries.
<sup>2</sup>Awarded only to films from 1973 to 1990, this honor was renewed 2009âÂÂ2011, (though split into two separate categories), and again starting in 2014 as "Best Film / Television Episode", and then "Best Film / Television Production" from 2016 onward. In the two years 2012âÂÂ2013, the BFS decided to present for extraordinary contributions to screenplay literature to Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris (2012) and co-writers Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon for Cabin in the Woods (2013). The category was again removed following the 2022 AGM.
In 2011, British writer Sam Stone won the British Fantasy Award but returned it three days later after editor and anthologist Stephen Jones posted a blog entry pointing out that three of the winning entries (and many of the shortlisted works) were published by Telos Publishing, a company owned by David Howe. At the time, Howe was also chair of the British Fantasy Society, British Fantasy Award coordinator, and partner of Stone.