Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Template:Use mdy dates Template:Short description Template:Pulitzer 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."<ref name=":3">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Award winners receive $15,000 USD.<ref name=":3" />

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<ref name="Pulitzer-list">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> by an American author or co-authors, published during the preceding calendar year. It is one of the original Pulitzers. The program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Recipients

In its first 97 years to 2013, the Biography Pulitzer was awarded 97 times. Two were given in 1938, and none in 1962.<ref name=prize/>

1910s-1940s

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners, 1917-1949<ref name="Pulitzer-list" />

Year	Author	Title	Ref.
1917	Template:Sortname and Maud Howe Elliott, assisted by Florence Howe Hall	Julia Ward Howe
1918	Template:Sortname	Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed
1919	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1920	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort, 4 vols.
1921	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1922	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1923	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1924	Template:Sortname	From Immigrant to Inventor
1925	Template:Sortname	Barrett Wendell and His Letters
1926	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort, 2 vols.
1927	Template:Sortname	Whitman
1928	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1929	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1930	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1931	Template:Sortname	Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University, 1869–1901
1932	Template:Sortname	Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography
1933	Template:Sortname	Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage
1934	Template:Sortname	John Hay
1935	Template:Sortname	R. E. Lee
1936	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1937	Template:Sortname	Hamilton Fish
1938	Template:Sortname	Andrew Jackson, 2 vols.
	Template:Sortname	Pedlar's Progress: The Life of Bronson Alcott
1939	Template:Sortname	Benjamin Franklin
1940	Template:Sortname	Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters. Vols. VII and VIII
1941	Template:Sortname	Jonathan Edwards, 1703–1758: a biography
1942	Template:Sortname	Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe
1943	Template:Sortname	Admiral of the Ocean Sea
1944	Template:Sortname	The American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1945	Template:Sortname	George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel
1946	Template:Sortname	Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir
1947	Template:Sortname	The Autobiography of William Allen White
1948	Template:Sortname	Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow
1949	Template:Sortname	Roosevelt and Hopkins

1950s-1970s

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners, 1950-1979<ref name="Pulitzer-list" />

Year	Author	Title	Ref.
1950	Template:Sortname	John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy
1951	Template:Sortname	John C. Calhoun: American Portrait
1952	Template:Sortname	Charles Evans Hughes
1953	Template:Sortname	Edmund Pendleton 1721–1803
1954	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1955	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1956	Template:Sortname	Benjamin Henry Latrobe
1957	Template:Sortname	Profiles in Courage	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1958	Template:Sortname with John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth	George Washington, vols. I-VII
1959	Template:Sortname	Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet
1960	Template:Sortname	John Paul Jones
1961	Template:Sortname	Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War
1962	No award presented<ref name="none1962">In 1962 the Pulitzer board awarded the prize to W.A. Swanberg for Citizen Hearst. The trustees of Columbia University, who administer the prize, overturned the award, refusing to honor a book that took a critical look at William Randolph Hearst. Template:Cite news</ref>
1963	Template:Sortname	Henry James
1964	Template:Sortname	John Keats
1965	Template:Sortname	Henry Adams, 3 vols.
1966	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1967	Template:Sortname	Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1968	Template:Sortname	Memoirs
1969	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1970	Template:Sortname	Huey Long	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1971	Template:Sortname	Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915–1938,
1972	Template:Sortname	Eleanor and Franklin
1973	Template:Sortname	Luce and His Empire
1974	Template:Sortname	O'Neill, Son and Artist
1975	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1976	Template:Sortname	Edith Wharton: A Biography
1977	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort
1978	Template:Sortname	Samuel Johnson
1979	Template:Sortname	Days of Sorrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews

1980s

Entries from this point on include the finalists listed after the winner for each year.

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners and finalists, 1980-1989<ref name="Pulitzer-list" />

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
1980	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Bernard Berenson, The Making of a Connoisseur	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Being Bernard Berenson	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
1981	Template:Sortname	Peter the Great: His Life and World	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Walt Whitman: A Life	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Walter Lippmann and the American Century	Finalist
1982	Template:Sortname	Grant: A Biography	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Waldo Emerson	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Mornings on Horseback	Finalist
1983	Template:Sortname	Growing Up	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Churchill: Young Man in a Hurry, 1874–1915	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Thomas E. Dewey and His Times	Finalist
1984	Template:Sortname	Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Thomas Carlyle: A Biography	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Black Apollo of Science: The Life of Ernest Everett Just	Finalist
1985	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Becoming William James	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1986	Template:Sortname	Louise Bogan: A Portrait	Winner
	Template:Sortname	George Washington Williams: A Biography	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
1987	Template:Sortname	Bearing The Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860–1865	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Murrow: His Life and Times	Finalist
1988	Template:Sortname	Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Hemingway	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	George Santayana: A Biography	Finalist
1989	Template:Sortname	Oscar Wilde	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Freud: A Life for Our Time	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist

1990s

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners and finalists, 1990-1999<ref name="Pulitzer-list" />

Year	Author(s)	Title	Result	Ref.
1990	Template:Sortname	Machiavelli in Hell	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Clear Pictures: First Loves, First Guides	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
1991	Template:Sortname and Gregory White Smith	Jackson Pollock: An American Saga	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Alfred I. Du Pont: The Man and His Family	Finalist
1992	Template:Sortname	Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller Jr.	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Frederick Douglass	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Orwell: The Authorized Biography	Finalist
1993	Template:Sortname	Truman	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Kissinger: A Biography	Finalist
1994	Template:Sortname	W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	In Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Genet: A Biography	Finalist
1995	Template:Sortname	Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Hugo Black: A Biography	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Saint-Exupery: A Biography	Finalist	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1996	Template:Sortname	God: A Biography	Winner
	Template:Sortname	John Sloan: Painter and Rebel	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Mozart: A Life	Finalist	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1997	Template:Sortname	Angela's Ashes: A Memoir	Winner
	Template:Sortname	In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Herman Melville: A Biography, Volume 1, 1819–1851	Finalist
1998	Template:Sortname	Personal History	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public-Private Life	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Whittaker Chambers: A Biography	Finalist
1999	Template:Sortname	Lindbergh	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	At Home with the Marquis de Sade: A Life	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist

2000s

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners and finalists, 2000-2009<ref name="Pulitzer-list" />

Year	Author(s)	Title	Result
2000	Template:Sortname	Vera, Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov	Winner	<ref name=":7" />
	Template:Sortname	Clear Springs: A Memoir	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love	Finalist
2001	Template:Sortname	W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919-1963	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician	Finalist
2002	Template:Sortname	John Adams	Winner	<ref name=":6" />
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Grant	Finalist	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2003	Template:Sortname	Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Beethoven: The Music and the Life	Finalist
2004	Template:Sortname	Khrushchev: The Man and His Era	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Isaac Newton	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work	Finalist
2005	Template:Sortname and Annalyn Swan	de Kooning: An American Master	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America	Finalist
2006	Template:Sortname and Martin J. Sherwin	American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2007	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner
	Template:Sortname	John Wilkes: The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty	Finalist	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Andrew Carnegie	Finalist
2008	Template:Sortname	Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father	Winner
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
2009	Template:Sortname	American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist

2010s

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners and finalists, 2010-2019<ref name="Pulitzer-list" />

Year	Author(s)	Title	Result	Ref.
2010	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Cheever: A Life	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Woodrow Wilson: A Biography	Finalist
2011	Template:Sortname	Washington: A Life	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon	Finalist
2012	Template:Sortname	George F. Kennan: An American Life	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":8">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution	Finalist	<ref name=":8" />
	Template:Sortname	Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention	Finalist	<ref name=":8" />
2013	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece	Finalist	<ref name=":9" />
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist	<ref name=":9" />
2014	Template:Sortname	Margaret Fuller: A New American Life	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life	Finalist
2015	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928	Finalist
2016	Template:Sortname	Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America	Finalist
2017	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	In the Darkroom	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	When Breath Becomes Air	Finalist
2018	Template:Sortname	Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Richard Nixon: The Life	Finalist	<ref name=":4" />
	Template:Sortname	Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character	Finalist	<ref name=":4" />
2019	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist	<ref name=":5" />
	Template:Sortname	Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siècle Paris	Finalist	<ref name=":5" />

2020s

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners and finalists, 2020-present<ref name="Pulitzer-list" />

Year	Author(s)	Work	Result	Ref
2020	Template:Sortname	Sontag: Her Life and Work	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century	Finalist	<ref name=":0" />
	Template:Sortname	Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Me	Finalist	<ref name=":0" />
2021	Template:Sortname and Tamara Payne	Template:Sort	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath	Finalist	<ref name=":1" />
	Template:Sortname	Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World	Finalist	<ref name=":1" />
2022	Template:Sortname and Erin I. Kelly	Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Pessoa: A Biography	Finalist	<ref name=":2" />
	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Finalist	<ref name=":2" />
2023	Template:Sortname	G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Mr. B: George Balanchine's 20th Century	Finalist	<ref name=":02" />
	Template:Sortname and Toluse Olorunnipa	His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice	Finalist	<ref name=":02" />
2024	Template:Sortname	King: A Life	Winner	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Template:Sortname	Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom	Winner	<ref name=":10" />
	Template:Sortname	Larry McMurtry: A Life	Finalist	<ref name=":10" />
2025	Template:Sortname	Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life	Winner
	Template:Sortname	John Lewis: A Life	Finalist
	Template:Sortname	The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker	Finalist

Repeat winners

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.<ref name=none1962/>

See also

• Pulitzer Prize for History

External links

• Template:Commons category inline