Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography by Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.

  1. The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

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    The Education of Henry Adams records the struggle of Bostonian Henry Adams (1838-1918), in early old age, to come to terms with the dawning 20th century, so different from the world of his youth. I...

  2. Henry James by Leon Edel

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  3. Edith Wharton: A Biography by R. W. B. Lewis

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    Edith Wharton: A Biography

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  4. Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate

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    This 1979 chronicle is seen by critics not only as the definitive life of Dr. Johnson, but as a model of well-researched, lucid, fair--but always affectionate--biography.

  5. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

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    The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979) is a Pulitzer Prize winning biography of President Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. It is the first in a planned trilogy with the second volume Theodore Re...

  6. The Power Broker by Robert Caro

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    The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York is a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1974 biography of Robert Moses, "New York City's Master Builder", by Robert Caro. In the years since its publicat...

  7. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Matteson

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  8. Eden's Outcasts by Jon Matteson

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  9. The Most Famous Man in America by Debby Applegate

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  10. American Prometheus by Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin

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    American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer is a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2005. Twenty-five yea...

  11. de Kooning by Mark Stevens, Annalyn Swan

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  12. Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman

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  13. Master of the Senate by Robert Caro

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    In the third and most-recently published volume, Master of the Senate, Caro chronicles Johnson's rapid ascent in the United States Congress, including his tenure as Senate Majority Leader. This 116...

  14. John Adams by David McCullough

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    John Adams is a 2001 biography of Founding Father and second U.S. President John Adams written by popular historian David McCullough. It won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize (for "Biography or Autobiography")...

  15. W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and The American Century by David Levering Lewis

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    William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced /duːˈbɔɪs/ doo-BOYSS) (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, historian, author, and e...

  16. Vera by Stacy Schiff

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  17. Julia Ward Howe by Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe Elliott

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    Maud Howe Elliott (November 9, 1854, Boston, Massachusetts – March 19, 1948, Newport, Rhode Island) was an American writer, most notable for her Pulitzer prize-winning collaboration with her sister...

  18. Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed by William Cabell Bruce

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    Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed is a biography of Benjamin Franklin written by William Cabell Bruce in 1917. A "biographical and critical study based mostly on [Benjamin Franklin's] own writings",...

  19. The Life of John Marshall by Albert J. Beveridge

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  20. The Americanization of Edward Bok by Edward Bok

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  21. A Daughter of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland

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  22. The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page by Burton J. Hendrick

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  23. From Immigrant to Inventor by Michael I. Pupin

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  24. Barrett Wendell and His Letters by M. A. Dewolfe Howe

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  25. The Life of Sir William Osler by Harvey Cushing

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  26. Whitman by Emory Holloway

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  27. The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas by Charles Edward Russell

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  28. The Training of an American: The Earlier Life and Letters of Walter H. Page by Burton J. Hendrick

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  29. The Raven by Marquis James

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  30. Charles W. Eliot by Henry James

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  31. Theodore Roosevelt by Henry F. Pringle

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  32. Grover Cleveland by Allan Nevins

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  33. John Hay by Tyler Dennett

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    Tyler Dennett (June 13, 1883, Spencer, Wisconsin – 1949) was an American historian and educator. He is best known for his book John Hay (1933), for which he won the 1934 Pulitzer Prize for biography.

  34. R. E. Lee by Douglas Southall Freeman

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    Autobiography of Robert E. Lee.

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  35. The Thought and Character of William James by Ralph Barton Perry

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  36. Hamilton Fish by Allan Nevins

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  37. Pedlar's Progress by Odell Shepard

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  38. The Life of Andrew Jackson by Marquis James

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    Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh President of the United States (1829–1837). He was military governor of Florida (1821), commander of the American forces at the Battle...

  39. Benjamin Franklin by Carl Van Doren

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  40. Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters by Ray Stannard Baker

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    Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856–February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States. A leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University...

  41. Johnathan Edward by Ola Elizabeth Winslow

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  42. Crusader in Crinoline by Forrest Wilson

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  43. Admiral of the Ocean Sea by Samuel Eliot Morison

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  44. The American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F B. Morse by Carleton Mabee

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    Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was the American inventor of a single-wire telegraph system and Morse code and a painter of historic scenes.

  45. George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel by Russel Blaine Nye

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  46. Son of the Wilderness by Linnie Marsh Wolfe

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  47. The Autobiography of William Allen White by William Allen White

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  48. Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow by Margaret Clapp

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  49. Roosevelt and Hopkins by Robert E. Sherwood

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  50. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy by Samuel Flagg Bemis

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  51. John C. Calhoun: American Portrait by Margaret Louise Coit

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  52. Charles Evans Hughes by Merlo J. Pusey

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  53. Edmund Pendleton 1721–1803 by David J. Mays

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    Edmund Pendleton (September 9, 1721 – October 23, 1803) was a Virginia politician, lawyer and judge, active in the American Revolutionary War.

  54. The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles Lindbergh

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  55. The Taft Story by William S. White

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  56. Benjamin Henry Latrobe by Talbot Faulkner Hamlin

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  57. Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy

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  58. George Washington by Douglas Southall Freeman

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  59. Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet by Arthur Walworth

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  60. John Paul Jones by Samuel Eliot Morison

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  61. Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War by David Donald

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  62. John Keats by Walter Jackson Bate

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  63. Henry Adams by Ernest Samuels

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  64. A Thousand Days by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr

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  65. Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain by Justin Kaplan

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  66. Memoirs by George Frost Kennan

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  67. The Man From New York: John Quinn and His Friends by Benjamin Lawrence Reid

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  68. Huey Long by Thomas Harry Williams

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  69. Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915–1938 by Lawrence Thompson

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  70. Eleanor and Franklin by Joseph P. Lash

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  71. Luce and His Empire by W. A. Swanberg

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  72. O'Neill, Son and Artist by Louis Sheaffer

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    Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (16 October 1888 – 27 November 1953) was an American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature. His plays are among the first to introduce into American drama the techni...

  73. A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T E. Lawrence by John E. Mack

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    Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence CB, DSO (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935), known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British military officer renowned especially for his liaison role dur...

  74. Days of Sorrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews by Leonard Baker

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    Leo Baeck (23 May 1873 – 2 November 1956) was a 20th century German-Polish-Jewish Rabbi, scholar, and a leader of Progressive Judaism.

  75. Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie

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  76. Grant: A Biography by William S. McFeely

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  77. Growing Up by Russell Baker

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  78. Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 by Louis R. Harlan

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    Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856, – November 14, 1915) was an American political leader, educator, orator and author. He was the dominant figure in the African American community in the ...

  79. The Life and Times of Cotton Mather by Kenneth Silverman

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    Cotton Mather (February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728; A.B. 1678, Harvard College; A.M. 1681, honorary doctorate 1710, University of Glasgow) was a socially and politically influential New England P...

  80. Louise Bogan: A Portrait by Elizabeth Frank

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  81. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J. Garrow

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    Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African-American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure prog...

  82. Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann

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  83. Machiavelli in Hell by Sebastian de Grazia

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  84. Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith

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  85. Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller Jr. by Lewis B. Puller

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  86. Truman by David McCullough

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  87. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life by Joan D. Hedrick

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  88. God: A Biography by Jack Miles

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    God: A Biography is a nonfiction book by Jack Miles. The book recounts the tale of existence of the Judeo-Christian deity as the protagonist of the Hebrew Tanak or Christian Bible Old Testament. Th...

  89. Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt

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    Angela’s Ashes is a memoir by Irish-American author Frank McCourt and tells the story of his childhood in Brooklyn and Ireland. It was published in 1996 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or ...

  90. Personal History by Katharine Graham

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    Personal History is the autobiography of Katharine Graham. It was published in 1997 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1998. The book received widespread critical acclaim ...

  91. Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg

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    Andrew Scott Berg (born December 4, 1949) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American biographer. After graduating from Princeton University in 1971, Berg expanded his senior thesis, about editor Maxwell ...

  92. W.E.B. Dubois : Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 by David Levering Lewis

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    William Edward Burghardt Du Bois - the premier architect of the civil rights movement in America - was a towering and controversial personality, a fiercely proud individual blessed with the languag...

  93. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

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    It is Wolfe's first novel, and is considered a highly autobiographical American Bildungsroman. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be a depiction of Wolfe himself. The novel cover...

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  94. The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles

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    A biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism, documenting how Vanderbilt helped launch the transportation revolution, propel the Gold Rush, reshape Manh...

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  95. Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

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    Washington: A Life is a 2010 biography of George Washington, the first President of the United States, written by American historian and biographer Ron Chernow. The book is a "one-volume, cradle-to...

  96. George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis

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    George F. Kennan: An American Life is a nonfiction book about U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan by John Lewis Gaddis that won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.Pulitzer.org descri...

  97. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss

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    The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo is a 2012 biography of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas written by Tom Reiss. The book presents the life and career of...

  98. Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall

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    Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography From an early age, Margaret Fuller provoked and dazzled New England’s intellectual elite. Her famous Conversations changed women’s sense of how they could...

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  99. The Pope and Mussolini by David I. Kertzer

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    The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe is a 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner biography of Pope Pius XI about his relations with Benito Mussolini and rise ...

  100. Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

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    Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life. Raised in California an...

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  101. The Return by Hisham Matar

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    The Return is a memoir by Hisham Matar that was first published in June 2016. The memoir centers on Matar's return to his native Libya in 2012 to search for the truth behind the 1990 disappearance ...

  102. Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

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    The first comprehensive historical biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie books Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they kno...

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