Pulitzer Prizes
(a) Fiction in book form:, (b) Plays:, (c) Poetry:, His Family
The annual Pulitzer Prizes were inaugurated in 1917 as the result of the bequest of newspaper proprietor Joseph Pulitzer (1847–1911) to provide funds for the foundation of Columbia University School of Journalism. The will established four categories of American literature: novel, play, US biography and US history. Prizes were extended to poetry in 1922, and to journalism in 1962. In 1947 novels were redefined as ‘fiction in book form’ to allow for short story collections. Listings for fiction, plays, and poetry are given below.
(a) Fiction in book form:
| 1917 | No award |
| 1918 | Ernest Poole, His Family |
| 1919 | Book Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons |
| 1920 | No award |
| 1921 | Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence |
| 1922 | Booth Tarkington, Alice Adams |
| 1923 | Willa Cather, One of Ours |
| 1924 | Margaret Wilson, The Able McLaughlins |
| 1925 | Edna Ferber, So Big |
| 1926 | Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith (declined) |
| 1927 | Louis Bromfield, Early Autumn |
| 1928 | Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey |
| 1929 | Julia Peterkin, Scarlet Sister Mary |
| 1930 | Oliver La Farge, Laughing Boy |
| 1931 | Margaret Ayer Barnes, Years of Grace |
| 1932 | Pearl Buck, The Good Earth |
| 1933 | T. S. Stribling, The Store |
| 1934 | Caroline Miller, Lamb in His Bosom |
| 1935 | Josephine Johnson, Now in November |
| 1936 | H. L. Davis, Honey in the Horn |
| 1937 | Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind |
| 1938 | J. P. Marquand, The Late George Apley |
| 1939 | Marjorie K. Rawlings, The Yearling |
| 1940 | John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath |
| 1941 | No award |
| 1942 | Ellen Glasgow, In This Our Life |
| 1943 | Upton Sinclair, Dragon's Teeth |
| 1944 | Martin Flavin, Journey in the Dark |
| 1945 | John Hersey, A Bell for Adano |
| 1946 | No award |
| 1947 | Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men |
| 1948 | James A. Michener, Tales of the South Pacific |
| 1949 | James Gould Cozzens, Guard of Honor |
| 1950 | A. B. Guthrie, The Way West |
| 1951 | Conrad Richter, The Town |
| 1952 | Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny |
| 1953 | Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea |
| 1954 | No award |
| 1955 | William Faulkner, A Fable |
| 1956 | MacKinlay Kantor, Andersonville |
| 1957 | No award |
| 1958 | James Agee, A Death in the Family |
| 1959 | Robert Lewis Taylor, The Travels of Jamie McPheeters |
| 1960 | Allen Drury, Advise and Consent |
| 1961 | Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird |
| 1962 | Edwin O'Connor, The Edge of Sadness |
| 1963 | William Faulkner, The Reivers |
| 1964 | No award |
| 1965 | Shirley Ann Grau, The Keepers of the House |
| 1966 | Katherine Anne Porter, Collected Stories |
| 1967 | Bernard Malamud, The Fixer |
| 1968 | William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner |
| 1969 | N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn |
| 1970 | Jean Stafford, Collected Stories |
| 1971 | No award |
| 1972 | Wallace Stegner, Angels of Repose |
| 1973 | Eudora Welty, The Optimist's Daughter |
| 1974 | No award |
| 1975 | Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels |
| 1976 | Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift |
| 1977 | No award |
| 1978 | James A. McPherson, Elbow Room |
| 1979 | John Cheever, The Stories of John Cheever |
| 1980 | Norman Mailer, The Executioner's Song |
| 1981 | John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces |
| 1982 | John Updike, Rabbit Is Rich |
| 1983 | Alice Walker, The Color Purple |
| 1984 | William Kennedy, Ironweed |
| 1985 | Alison Lurie, Foreign Affairs |
| 1986 | Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove |
| 1987 | Peter Taylor, A Summons to Memphis |
| 1988 | Toni Morrison, Beloved |
| 1989 | Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons |
| 1990 | Oscar Hijuelos, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love |
| 1991 | John Updike, Rabbit at Rest |
| 1992 | Jane Simley, A Thousand Acres |
| 1993 | Robert Olen Butler, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain |
| 1994 | E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News |
| 1995 | Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries |
(b) Plays:
| 1917 | No award |
| 1918 | Jesse L. Williams, Why Marry? |
| 1919 | No award |
| 1920 | Eugene O'Neill, Beyond the Horizon |
| 1921 | Zona Gale, Miss Lulu Bett |
| 1922 | Eugene O'Neill, ‘Anna Christie’ |
| 1923 | Owen Davis, Icebound |
| 1924 | Hatcher Hughes, Hell-Bent for Heaven |
| 1925 | Sidney Howard, They Knew What They Wanted |
| 1926 | George Kelly, Craig's Wife |
| 1927 | Paul Green, In Abraham's Bosom |
| 1928 | Eugene O'Neill, Strange Interlude |
| 1929 | Elmer Rice, Street Scene |
| 1930 | Marc Connelly, The Green Pastures |
| 1931 | Susan Glaspell, Alison's House |
| 1932 | George Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, Of Thee I Sing |
| 1933 | Maxwell Anderson, Both Your Houses |
| 1934 | Sidney Kingsley, Men in White |
| 1935 | Zoë Akins, The Old Maid |
| 1936 | Robert Sherwood, Idiot's Delight |
| 1937 | George Kaufman, Moss Hart, and Ira Gershwin, You Can't Take It With You |
| 1938 | Thornton Wilder, Our Town |
| 1939 | Robert Sherwood, Abe Lincoln in Illinois |
| 1940 | William Saroyan, The Time of Your Life (declined) |
| 1941 | Robert Sherwood, There Shall Be No Night |
| 1942 | No award |
| 1943 | Thornton Wilder, The Skin of Our Teeth |
| 1944 | No award; special award for a musical play to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II for Oklahoma! |
| 1945 | Mary Chase, Harvey |
| 1946 | Russel Crouse and Howard Lindsay, State of the Union |
| 1947 | No award |
| 1948 | Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire |
| 1949 | Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman |
| 1950 | Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Joshua Logan, South Pacific |
| 1951 | No award |
| 1952 | Joseph Kramm, The Shrike |
| 1953 | William Inge, Picnic |
| 1954 | John Patrick, The Teahouse of the August Moon |
| 1955 | Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof |
| 1956 | Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, The Diary of Anne Frank |
| 1957 | Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night |
| 1958 | Ketti Frings, Look Homeward, Angel |
| 1959 | Archibald MacLeish, J.B. |
| 1960 | Jerome Weidman and George Abbott, Fiorello! |
| 1961 | Tad Mosel, All the Way Home |
| 1962 | Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying |
| 1963 | No award |
| 1964 | No award |
| 1965 | Frank D. Gilroy, The Subject Was Roses |
| 1966 | No award |
| 1967 | Edward Albee, A Delicate Balance |
| 1968 | No award |
| 1969 | Howard Sackler, The Great White Hope |
| 1970 | Charles Gordone, No Place To Be Somebody |
| 1971 | Paul Zindel, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds |
| 1972 | No award |
| 1973 | Jason Miller, The Championship Season |
| 1974 | No award |
| 1975 | Edward Albee, Seascape |
| 1976 | Michael Bennett, James Kirkwood, Nicholas Dante, Marvin Hamlisch, and Edward Kieban, A Chorus Line |
| 1977 | Michael Cristofer, The Shadow Box |
| 1978 | Donald L. Coburn, The Gin Game |
| 1979 | Sam Shepard, Buried Child |
| 1980 | Lanford Wilson, Talley's Folly |
| 1981 | Beth Henley, Crimes of the Heart |
| 1982 | Charles Fuller, A Soldier's Play |
| 1983 | Marsha Norman, 'night, Mother |
| 1984 | David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross |
| 1985 | Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, Sunday in the Park with George |
| 1986 | No award |
| 1987 | August Wilson, Fences |
| 1988 | Alfred Uhry, Driving Miss Daisy |
| 1989 | Wendy Wasserstein, The Heidi Chronicles |
| 1990 | August Wilson, The Piano Lesson |
| 1991 | Neil Simon, Lost in Yonkers |
| 1992 | Robert Schenkan, The Kentucky Cycle |
| 1993 | Tony Kushner, Angels in America |
| 1994 | Edward Albee, Three Tall Women |
| 1995 | Horton Foote, The Young Man from |
(c) Poetry:
(Special prizes were awarded, from gifts provided by the Poetry Society, in 1918 to Sara Teasdale for Love Songs, and in 1919 to Margaret Widdemer for Old Road to Paradise and to Carl Sandburg for Cornhuskers.)
| 1992 | Edwin Arlington Robinson, Collected Poems |
| 1923 | Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver; A Few Figs from Thistles; Eight Sonnets |
| 1924 | Robert Frost, New Hampshire |
| 1925 | Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Man Who Died Twice |
| 1926 | Amy Lowell, What's O'Clock? |
| 1927 | Leonora Speyer, Fiddler's Farewell |
| 1928 | Edwin Arlington Robinson, Tristram Atlanta |
| 1929 | Stephen Vincent Benét, John Brown's Body |
| 1930 | Conrad Aiken, Selected Poems |
| 1931 | Robert Frost, Collected Poems |
| 1932 | George Dillon, The Flowering Stone |
| 1933 | Archibald MacLeish, Conquistador |
| 1934 | Robert Hillyer, Collected Verse |
| 1935 | Audrey Wurdemann, Bright Ambush |
| 1936 | Robert Coffin, Strange Holiness |
| 1937 | Robert Frost, A Further Range |
| 1938 | Marya Zaturenska, Cold Morning Sky |
| 1939 | John Gould Fletcher, Selected Poems |
| 1940 | Mark Van Doren, Collected Poems |
| 1941 | Leonard Bacon, Sunderland Capture |
| 1942 | William Rose Benét, The Dust Which Is God |
| 1943 | Robert Frost, A Witness Tree |
| 1944 | Stephen Vincent Bené, Western Star |
| 1945 | Karl Shapiro, V-Letter and Other Poems |
| 1946 | No award |
| 1947 | Robert Lowell, Lord Weary's Castle |
| 1948 | W. H. Auden, The Age of Anxiety |
| 1949 | Peter Viereck, Terror and Decorum |
| 1950 | Gwendolyn Brooks, Annie Adams |
| 1951 | Carl Sandburg, Complete Poems |
| 1952 | Marianne Moore, Collected Poems |
| 1953 | Archibald MacLeish, Collected Poems, 1917–1952 |
| 1954 | Theodore Roethke, The Waking |
| 1955 | Wallace Stevens, Collected Poems |
| 1956 | Elizabeth Bishop, Poems—North & South |
| 1957 | Richard Wilbur, Things of This World |
| 1958 | Robert Penn Warren, Promises: Poems 1954–1956 |
| 1959 | Stanley Kunitz, Selected Poems: 1918–1958 |
| 1960 | W. D. Snodgrass, Heart's Needle |
| 1961 | Phyllis McGinley, Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades |
| 1962 | Alan Dugan, Poems |
| 1963 | William Carlos Williams, Pictures from Brueghel |
| 1964 | Louis Simpson, At the End of the Open Road |
| 1965 | John Berryman, 77 Dream Songs |
| 1966 | Richard Eberhart, Selected Poems |
| 1967 | Ann Sexton, Live or Die |
| 1968 | Anthony Hecht, The Hard Hours |
| 1969 | George Oppen, Of Being Numerous |
| 1970 | Richard Howard, United Subjects |
| 1971 | W. S. Merwin, The Carrier of Ladders |
| 1972 | James Wright, Collected Poems |
| 1973 | Maxine Kumin, Up Country |
| 1974 | No award |
| 1975 | Gary Snyder, Turtle Island |
| 1976 | John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror |
| 1977 | James Merrill, Divine Comedies |
| 1978 | Howard Nemerov, Collected Poems |
| 1979 | Robert Penn Warren, New and Then |
| 1980 | Donald Justice, Selected Poems |
| 1981 | James Schuyler, The Morning of the Poem |
| 1982 | Sylvia Plath, The Collected Poems |
| 1983 | Galway Kinnell, Selected Poems |
| 1984 | Mary Oliver, American Primitive |
| 1985 | Carolyn Kizer, Yin |
| 1986 | Henry Taylor, The Flying Change |
| 1987 | Rita Dove, Thomas and Beulah |
| 1988 | William Meredith, Partial Accounts |
| 1989 | Richard Wilbur, New and Collected Poems |
| 1990 | Charles Simic, The World Doesn't End |
| 1991 | Mona Van Duyn, Near Changes |
| 1992 | James Tate, Selected Poems |
| 1993 | Louise Glück, The Wild Iris |
| 1994 | Yousef Komunyakaa, Neon Vernacular |
| 1995 | Philip Levine, Simple Truth |
Additional topics
Literature Reference: American Literature, English Literature, Classics & Modern FictionEncyclopedia of Literature: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog to Rabbit Tetralogy