Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Pulitzer Prize, 108 Books

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

Rough head-count of people who shape the result each year

5 subject-matter jurors who screen the entries and forward three titles.

19 Board members who cast the decisive votes.
So, a maximum of 24 people take part in the decision path for the Biography / Autobiography prize each cycle.

Names are not secret, just easy to overlook.

Jury names stay under wraps until winners are announced, then they’re displayed on each category’s web page (and occasionally turn up in press coverage or book-specific Wikipedia entries, as in the 2011 example above).

Board membership is public all year and archived from one cycle to the next.

This list is a yearly book award, and was added to this site over 12 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
377 The Education of Henry Adams Henry Adams 1907 American English
868 Henry James Leon Edel 1953 American English
9584 Edith Wharton R. W. B. Lewis 1975 American English
3548 Samuel Johnson Walter Jackson Bate 1977 American English
5018 The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Edmund Morris 1979 American English
1901 The Power Broker Robert Caro 1974 American English
11941 American Lion Jon Matteson 2008 American English
11941 Eden's Outcasts Jon Matteson 2007 American Unknown
11941 The Most Famous Man in America Debby Applegate 2006 American English
9584 American Prometheus Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin 2005 American English
8393 de Kooning Mark Stevens, Annalyn Swan 2004 American English
11941 Khrushchev William Taubman 2003 American English
2340 Master of the Senate Robert Caro 2002 American English
8770 John Adams David McCullough 2001 American English
8704 W.E.B. Du Bois David Levering Lewis 2000 American English
11941 Vera Stacy Schiff 1999 American English
11941 Julia Ward Howe Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe Elliott 1915 American English
11941 Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed William Cabell Bruce 1917 American English
10203 The Life of John Marshall Albert J. Beveridge 1916 American English
2413 The Americanization of Edward Bok Edward Bok 1920 American English
11941 A Daughter of the Middle Border Hamlin Garland 1921 American English
10366 The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page Burton J. Hendrick 1922 American English
11941 From Immigrant to Inventor Michael I. Pupin 1923 American English
11941 Barrett Wendell and His Letters M. A. Dewolfe Howe 1924 American English
11941 The Life of Sir William Osler Harvey Cushing 1925 American English
11941 Whitman Emory Holloway 1926 American English
11941 The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas Charles Edward Russell 1927 American English
11941 The Training of an American Burton J. Hendrick 1928 American English
11941 The Raven Marquis James 1929 American English
11941 Charles W. Eliot Henry James 1909 American Unknown
11941 Theodore Roosevelt Henry F. Pringle 1931 American English
11941 Grover Cleveland Allan Nevins 1932 American English
11941 John Hay Tyler Dennett 1933 American English
1434 R. E. Lee Douglas Southall Freeman 1934 American English
11941 The Thought and Character of William James Ralph Barton Perry 1935 American English
11941 Hamilton Fish Allan Nevins 1936 American English
11941 Pedlar's Progress Odell Shepard 1937 American English
3113 The Life of Andrew Jackson Marquis James 1937 American English
6599 Benjamin Franklin Carl Van Doren 1938 American English
11941 Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters Ray Stannard Baker 1927 American English
11941 Johnathan Edwards Ola Elizabeth Winslow 1940 American English
11941 Crusader in Crinoline Forrest Wilson 1941 American English
11941 Admiral of the Ocean Sea Samuel Eliot Morison 1942 American English
11941 The American Leonardo Carleton Mabee 1943 American English
11941 George Bancroft Russel Blaine Nye 1944 American English
11941 Son of the Wilderness Linnie Marsh Wolfe 1946 American English
11941 The Autobiography of William Allen White William Allen White 1946 American English
11941 Forgotten First Citizen Margaret Clapp 1947 American English
11941 Roosevelt and Hopkins Robert E. Sherwood 1948 American English
11941 John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy Samuel Flagg Bemis 1949 American English
11941 John C. Calhoun Margaret Louise Coit 1950 American English
11941 Charles Evans Hughes Merlo J. Pusey 1951 American English
11941 Edmund Pendleton 1721–1803 David J. Mays 1952 American English
2094 The Spirit of St. Louis Charles Lindbergh 1953 American English
11941 The Taft Story William S. White 1954 American English
11941 Benjamin Henry Latrobe Talbot Faulkner Hamlin 1955 American English
3456 Profiles in Courage John F. Kennedy 1956 American English
11941 George Washington Douglas Southall Freeman 1948 American English
11941 Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet Arthur Walworth 1958 American English
11941 John Paul Jones Samuel Eliot Morison 1959 American English
11941 Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War David Donald 1960 American English
2888 John Keats Walter Jackson Bate 1963 American English
11941 Henry Adams Ernest Samuels 1948 American English
11941 A Thousand Days Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr 1965 American English
11941 Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain Justin Kaplan 1966 American English
11941 Memoirs George F. Kennan 1967 American English
11941 The Man From New York Benjamin Lawrence Reid 1968 American English
10772 Huey Long T. Harry Williams 1969 American English
11941 Robert Frost Lawrence Thompson 1970 American English
10420 Eleanor and Franklin Joseph P. Lash 1971 American English
10452 Luce and His Empire W. A. Swanberg 1972 American English
11941 O'Neill, Son and Artist Louis Sheaffer 1973 American English
11941 A Prince of Our Disorder John E. Mack 1976 American English
11941 Days of Sorrow and Pain Leonard Baker 1978 American English
10788 Peter the Great Robert K. Massie 1980 American English
11941 Grant William S. McFeely 1981 American English
3311 Growing Up Russell Baker 1982 American English
11941 Booker T. Washington Louis R. Harlan 1983 American English
11941 The Life and Times of Cotton Mather Kenneth Silverman 1984 American English
11941 Louise Bogan Elizabeth Frank 1985 American English
11941 Bearing the Cross David J. Garrow 1986 American English
11941 Oscar Wilde Richard Ellmann 1987 American English
11941 Machiavelli in Hell Sebastian de Grazia 1989 American English
10788 Jackson Pollock Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith 1989 American English
11941 Fortunate Son Lewis B. Puller 1991 American English
4508 Truman David McCullough 1992 American English
11941 Harriet Beecher Stowe Joan D. Hedrick 1994 American English
11941 God Jack Miles 1995 American English
1643 Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt 1996 American English
2341 Personal History Katharine Graham 1997 American English
11941 Lindbergh A. Scott Berg 1998 American English
253 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
10788 The First Tycoon T. J. Stiles 2009 American English
10788 Washington Ron Chernow 2010 American English
11941 George F. Kennan John Lewis Gaddis 2011 American English
6500 The Black Count Tom Reiss 2012 French English
11941 Margaret Fuller Megan Marshall 2013 American English
11941 The Pope and Mussolini David I. Kertzer 2014 American English
1818 Barbarian Days William Finnegan 2015 American English
2927 The Return Hisham Matar 2016 Libyan English
5809 Prairie Fires Caroline Fraser 2017 American English
10788 The New Negro Jeffrey C. Stewart 2018 American English
11941 Sontag Benjamin Moser 2019 American English
10788 The Dead Are Arising Les Payne 2020 American English
11941 Chasing Me To My Grave Winfred Rembert, Erin I. Kelly 2021 American English
11941 G Man Beverly Gage 2022 American English
5933 King Jonathan Eig 2023 American English
7680 Master Slave Husband Wife Ilyon Woo 2023 Unknown English