Any of 22 authors, including Iris Murdoch and Joe Orton, could be awarded the coveted Lost Man Booker prize for novels that missed out due to rule changes in 1971

Melvyn Bragg, Len Deighton, J.G. Farrell, Susan Hill, David Lodge, Ruth Rendell and Patrick White are just some of the authors who could win The Lost Man Booker Prize which is unveiled today, Monday 1st February. This is a one-off prize to honour books published in 1970 which missed out on the opportunity to win the Booker Prize.

Iris Murdoch's "A Fairly Honourable Defeat" is up against 21 other works, including "The Fire Dwellers" by Margaret Laurence, Len Deighton's "Bomber," ''A Guilty Thing Surprised," by Ruth Rendell, and "A Clubbable Woman," by Reginald Hill.