The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography

1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s

For more information about the Pulitzer Prizes, click here.

1917     Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910 by Laura E. Richards and Maude Howe Elliott, assisted by Florence Howe Hall
1918     Benjamin Franklin, self-revealed; a biographical and critical study based mainly on his own writings by William Cabell Bruce (volume 1) (volume 2)
1919     The education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
1920     The life of John Marshall by Albert J. Beveridge
1921     The Americanization of Edward Bok; the autobiography of a Dutch boy fifty years after... by Edward Bok
1922     A daughter of the middle border by Hamlin Garland
1923     The life and letters of Walter H. Page by Burton J. Hendrick
1924     From immigrant to inventor by Michael Idvorsky Pupin
1925     Barrett Wendell and his letters by M. A. Dewolfe Howe
1926     The life of Sir William Osler by Harvey Cushing
1927     Whitman; an interpretation in narrative by Emory Holloway
1928     The American orchestra and Theodore Thomas by Charles Edward Russell
1929     The training of an American : the earlier life and letters of Walter H. Page, 1855-1913 by Burton J. Hendrick
1930     The Raven; a biography of Sam Houston by Marquis James
1931     Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard university, 1869-1909 by Henry James
1932     Theodore Roosevelt, a biography by Henry F. Pringle
1933     Grover Cleveland : a study in courage by Allan Nevins
1934     John Hay; from poetry to politics by Tyler Dennett
1935     R. E. Lee, a biography by Douglas S. Freeman
1936     The thought and character of William James by Ralph Barton Perry
1937     Hamilton Fish; the inner history of the Grant administration by Allan Nevins
1938     Pedlar's progress by Odell Shepard
1938     The life of Andrew Jackson by Marquis James
1939     Benjamin Franklin by Carl Van Doren
1940     Woodrow Wilson; life and letters : volume VII : War leader, April 6, 1917-February 28, 1918 and volume VIII : Armistice, March 1-November 11, 1918 by Ray Stannard Baker
1941     Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758; a biography by Ola Elizabeth Winslow
1942     Crusader in crinoline, the life of Harriet Beecher Stowe by Forrest Wilson
1943     Admiral of the ocean sea, a life of Christopher Columbus by Samuel Eliot Morison (one-volume, condensed edition here)
1944     The American Leonardo, a life of Samuel F. B. Morse by Carleton Mabee
1945     George Bancroft by Russell Blaine Nye
1946     Son of the wilderness; the life of John Muir by Linnie Marsh Wolfe
1947     The autobiography of William Allen White by William Allen White
1948     Forgotten first citizen : John Bigelow by Margaret Clapp
1949     Roosevelt and Hopkins, an intimate history by Robert E. Sherwood
1950     John Quincy Adams and the foundations of American foreign policy by Samuel Flagg Bemis
1951     John C. Calhoun : American portrait by Margaret Louise Coit
1952     Charles Evans Hughes by Merlo J. Pusey
1953     Edmund Pendleton, 1721-1803 : a biography by David J. Mays
1954     The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles A. Lindbergh
1955     The Taft story by William S. White
1956     Benjamin Henry Latrobe by Talbot Faulkner Hamlin
1957     Profiles in courage by John F. Kennedy
1958     George Washington, a biography Douglas Southall Freeman
1959     Woodrow Wilson : volume 1: American prophet by Arthur Walworth
1960     John Paul Jones : a sailor's biography by Samuel Eliot Morison
1961     Charles Sumner and the coming of the Civil War by David Donald
1962     No award
1963     Henry James by Leon Edel
1964     John Keats by Walter Jackson Bate
1965     Henry Adams, in three volumes (The young Henry Adams; Henry Adams, the middle years; Henry Adams; the major phase) by Ernest Samuels
1966     A thousand days; John F. Kennedy in the White House by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
1967     Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, a biography by Justin Kaplan
1968     Memoirs by George E. Kennan
1969     The man from New York : John Quinn and his friends by Benjamin Lawrence Reid
1970     Huey Long by T. Harry Williams
1971     Robert Frost : volume 2: the years of triumph, 1915-1938 by Lawrance Thompson
1972     Eleanor and Franklin; the story of their relationship, based on Eleanor Roosevelt's private papers by Joseph P. Lash
1973     Luce and his empire by W. A. Swanberg
1974     O'Neill : son and artist by Louis Sheaffer
1975     The power broker : Robert Moses and the fall of New York by Robert Caro
1976     Edith Wharton : a biography by R. W. B. Lewis
1977     A prince of our disorder : the life of T. E. Lawrence by John E. Mack
1978     Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate
1979     Days of sorrow and pain : Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews by Leonard Baker
1980     The rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
1981     Peter the Great : his life and world by Robert K. Massie
1982     Grant : a biography by William McFeely
1983     Growing up by Russell Baker
1984     Booker T. Washington : the wizard of Tuskegee, 1901-1915 by Louis R. Harlan
1985     The life and times of Cotton Mather by Kenneth Silverman
1986     Louise Bogan : a portrait by Elizabeth Frank
1987     Bearing the cross : Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David. J. Garrow
1988     Look homeward : a life of Thomas Wolfe by David Herbert Donald
1989     Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann
1990     Machiavelli in hell by Sebastian de Grazia
1991     Jackson Pollock : an American genius by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
1992     Fortunate son : the healing of a Vietnam vet by Lewis B. Puller, Jr.
1993     Truman by David McCullough
1994     W. E. B. Du Bois : biography of a race, 1868-1919 by David Levering Lewis
1995     Harriet Beecher Stowe : a life by Joan D. Hedrick
1996     God : a biography by Jack Miles
1997     Angela's ashes : a memoir by Frank McCourt
1998     Personal history by Katharine Graham
1999     Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg
2000     Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff
2001     W. E. B. Du Bois--the fight for equality and the American century, 1919-1963 by David Levering Lewis
2002     John Adams by David McCullough
2003     The years of Lyndon Johnson : volume 3 : the master of the Senate by Robert Caro
2004     Khrushchev : the man and his era by William Taubman
2005     De Kooning : an American master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan
2006     American Prometheus : the triumph and tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
2007     The most famous man in America : the biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate
2008     Eden's outcasts : the story of Louisa May Alcott and her father by John Matteson
2009     American lion : Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
2010     The first tycoon : the epic life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles
2011     Washington : a life by Ron Chernow
2012     George F. Kennan : an American life by John Lewis Gaddis
2013     The black count : glory, revolution, betrayal, and the real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
2014     Margaret Fuller : a new American life by Megan Marshall
2015     The Pope and Mussolini : the secret history of Pius XI and the rise of fascism in Europe by David I. Kertzer
2016     Barbarian days : a surfing life by William Finnegan
2017     The return : fathers, sons, and the land in between by Hisham Matar
2018     Prairie fires : the American dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser