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American award for distinguished biographies
The Pulitzer Prize for Biography is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award honors "a distinguished and appropriately documented biography by an American author."[ 1] Award winners received $15,000 USD.[ 1]
From 1917 to 2022, this prize was known as the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and was awarded to a distinguished biography, autobiography or memoir[ 2] by an American author or co-authors, published during the preceding calendar year. Thus it is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year.[ 3]
In its first 97 years to 2013, the Biography Pulitzer was awarded 97 times. Two were given in 1938, and none in 1962.[ 4]
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners, 1917-1949[ 2]
Year
Author
Title
Ref.
1917
Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott , assisted by Florence Howe Hall
Julia Ward Howe
1918
William Cabell Bruce
Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed
1919
Henry Adams
The Education of Henry Adams
1920
Albert J. Beveridge
The Life of John Marshall , 4 vols.
1921
Edward Bok
The Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After
1922
Hamlin Garland
A Daughter of the Middle Border
1923
Burton J. Hendrick
The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page
1924
Michael I. Pupin
From Immigrant to Inventor
1925
M. A. Dewolfe Howe
Barrett Wendell and His Letters
1926
Harvey Cushing
The Life of Sir William Osler , 2 vols.
1927
Emory Holloway
Whitman
1928
Charles Edward Russell
The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas
1929
Burton J. Hendrick
The Training of an American: The Earlier Life and Letters of Walter H. Page
1930
Marquis James
The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston
1931
Henry James
Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University, 1869–1901
1932
Henry F. Pringle
Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography
1933
Allan Nevins
Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage
1934
Tyler Dennett
John Hay
1935
Douglas S. Freeman
R. E. Lee
1936
Ralph Barton Perry
The Thought and Character of William James
1937
Allan Nevins
Hamilton Fish
1938
Marquis James
Andrew Jackson , 2 vols.
Odell Shepard
Pedlar's Progress: The Life of Bronson Alcott
1939
Carl Van Doren
Benjamin Franklin
1940
Ray Stannard Baker
Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters. Vols. VII and VIII
1941
Ola Elizabeth Winslow
Jonathan Edwards, 1703–1758: a biography
1942
Forrest Wilson
Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe
1943
Samuel Eliot Morison
Admiral of the Ocean Sea
1944
Carleton Mabee
The American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse
[ 5]
1945
Russel Blaine Nye
George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel
1946
Linnie Marsh Wolfe
Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir
1947
William Allen White
The Autobiography of William Allen White
1948
Margaret Clapp
Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow
1949
Robert E. Sherwood
Roosevelt and Hopkins
Entries from this point on include the finalists listed after the winner for each year.
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners and finalists, 2010-2019[ 2]
Year
Author(s)
Title
Result
Ref.
2010
T. J. Stiles
The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
Winner
[ 34]
Blake Bailey
Cheever: A Life
Finalist
John Milton Cooper, Jr.
Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
Finalist
2011
Ron Chernow
Washington: A Life
Winner
[ 35] [ 36]
Alan Brinkley
The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century
Finalist
Michael O'Brien
Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon
Finalist
2012
John Lewis Gaddis
George F. Kennan: An American Life
Winner
[ 37] [ 38]
Mary Gabriel
Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution
Finalist
[ 38]
Manning Marable
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
Finalist
[ 38]
2013
Tom Reiss
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
Winner
[ 39]
Michael Gorra
Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece
Finalist
[ 39]
David Nasaw
The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy
Finalist
[ 39]
2014
Megan Marshall
Margaret Fuller: A New American Life
Winner
[ 40] [ 41]
Leo Damrosch
Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World
Finalist
Jonathan Sperber
Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life
Finalist
2015
David I. Kertzer
The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe
Winner
[ 42] [ 43]
Thomas Brothers
Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism
Finalist
Stephen Kotkin
Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928
Finalist
2016
William Finnegan
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
Winner
[ 44] [ 45]
Elizabeth Alexander
The Light of the World: A Memoir
Finalist
T. J. Stiles
Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America
Finalist
2017
Hisham Matar
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
Winner
[ 46] [ 47]
Susan Faludi
In the Darkroom
Finalist
Paul Kalanithi
When Breath Becomes Air
Finalist
2018
Caroline Fraser
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Winner
[ 48] [ 49]
John A. Farrell
Richard Nixon: The Life
Finalist
[ 48]
Kay Redfield Jamison
Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character
Finalist
[ 48]
2019
Jeffrey C. Stewart
The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke
Winner
[ 50] [ 51]
Max Boot
The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam
Finalist
[ 50]
Caroline Weber
Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siècle Paris
Finalist
[ 50]
Ten people have won the Pulitzer for Biography or Autobiography twice:
Burton J. Hendrick , 1923, 1929
Allan Nevins , 1933, 1937
Marquis James , 1930, 1938
Douglas S. Freeman , 1935, 1958
Samuel Eliot Morison , 1943, 1960
Walter Jackson Bate , 1964, 1978
David Herbert Donald , 1961, 1988
David Levering Lewis , 1994, 2001
David McCullough , 1993, 2002
Robert Caro , 1975, 2003
W. A. Swanberg was selected by the Pulitzer board in 1962 and 1973; however, the trustees of Columbia University (then responsible for conferral of the awards) overturned the proposed 1962 prize for Citizen Hearst .[ 7]
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^ a b c Habash, Gabe (April 16, 2012). "2012 Pulitzer Prize: No Fiction Award, Jurors 'Shocked' " . Publishers Weekly . Archived from the original on January 19, 2023. Retrieved May 10, 2023 .
^ a b c Habash, Gabe (April 15, 2013). "2013 Pulitzer Prize: 'Orphan Master' Brings Fiction Prize Back" . Publishers Weekly . Archived from the original on January 26, 2021. Retrieved May 10, 2023 .
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Pulitzers by Year Categories
Journalism Letters, Drama, & Music
1917–1925
1926–1950
1951–1975
1976–2000
2001–2025