Every winner, newest first

Pulitzer Prize for Biography Winners

1917 to 2026

Winners by year

Newest first. The year links to everything published or awarded that year.

Pulitzer Prize for Biography Winners, newest first
Year	Book and author
2026	Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution by Amanda Vaill
2025	Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts
2024	Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo
2024	King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
2023	G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage
2022	Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South by Winfred Rembert and Erin I. Kelly
2021	The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne
2020	Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser
2019	The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart
2018	Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser
2017	The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar
2016	Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan
2015	The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe by David I. Kertzer
2014	Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall
2013	The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
2012	George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis
2011	Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
2010	The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles
2009	American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
2008	Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson
2007	The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate
2006	American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
2005	de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan
2004	Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman
2003	Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro
2002	John Adams by David McCullough
2001	W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919-1963 by David Levering Lewis
2000	Vera, Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov by Stacy Schiff
1999	Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg
1998	Personal History by Katharine Graham
1997	Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
1996	God: A Biography by Jack Miles
1995	Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life by Joan D. Hedrick
1994	W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 by David Levering Lewis
1993	Truman by David McCullough
1992	Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller Jr. by Lewis B. Puller Jr.
1991	Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
1990	Machiavelli in Hell by Sebastian de Grazia
1989	Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann
1988	Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe by David Herbert Donald
1987	Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J. Garrow
1986	Louise Bogan: A Portrait by Elizabeth Frank
1985	The Life and Times of Cotton Mather by Kenneth Silverman
1984	Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 by Louis R. Harlan
1983	Growing Up by Russell Baker
1982	Grant: A Biography by William S. McFeely
1981	Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie
1980	The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
1979	Days of Sorrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews by Leonard Baker
1978	Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate
1977	A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence by John E. Mack
1976	Edith Wharton: A Biography by R. W. B. Lewis
1975	The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro
1974	O'Neill, Son and Artist by Louis Sheaffer
1973	Luce and His Empire by W. A. Swanberg
1972	Eleanor and Franklin by Joseph P. Lash
1971	Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915–1938 by Lawrance Thompson
1970	Huey Long by Thomas Harry Williams
1969	The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends by Benjamin Lawrence Reid
1968	Memoirs by George F. Kennan
1967	Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain by Justin Kaplan
1966	A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
1965	Henry Adams by Ernest Samuels
1964	John Keats by Walter Jackson Bate
1963	Henry James by Leon Edel
1962	No Award
1961	Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War by David Donald
1960	John Paul Jones by Samuel Eliot Morison
1959	Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet by Arthur Walworth
1958	George Washington, Vols. I-VII by Douglas Southall Freeman, John Alexander Carroll, and Mary Wells Ashworth
1957	Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy
1956	Benjamin Henry Latrobe by Talbot Faulkner Hamlin
1955	The Taft Story by William S. White
1954	The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles A. Lindbergh
1953	Edmund Pendleton 1721–1803 by David J. Mays
1952	Charles Evans Hughes by Merlo J. Pusey
1951	John C. Calhoun: American Portrait by Margaret Louise Coit
1950	John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy by Samuel Flagg Bemis
1949	Roosevelt and Hopkins by Robert E. Sherwood
1948	Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow by Margaret Clapp
1947	The Autobiography of William Allen White by William Allen White
1946	Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir by Linnie Marsh Wolfe
1945	George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel by Russel Blaine Nye
1944	The American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse by Carleton Mabee
1943	Admiral of the Ocean Sea by Samuel Eliot Morison
1942	Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe by Forrest Wilson
1941	Jonathan Edwards, 1703–1758: A Biography by Ola Elizabeth Winslow
1940	Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters, Vols. VII and VIII by Ray Stannard Baker
1939	Benjamin Franklin by Carl Van Doren
1938	Pedlar's Progress: The Life of Bronson Alcott by Odell Shepard
1938	The Life of Andrew Jackson by Marquis James
1937	Hamilton Fish by Allan Nevins
1936	The Thought and Character of William James by Ralph Barton Perry
1935	R. E. Lee by Douglas S. Freeman
1934	John Hay by Tyler Dennett
1933	Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage by Allan Nevins
1932	Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography by Henry F. Pringle
1931	Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University, 1869–1909 by Henry James
1930	The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston by Marquis James
1929	The Training of an American by Burton J. Hendrick
1928	The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas by Charles Edward Russell
1927	Whitman by Emory Holloway
1926	The Life of Sir William Osler by Harvey Cushing
1925	Barrett Wendell and His Letters by M. A. De Wolfe Howe
1924	From Immigrant to Inventor by Michael I. Pupin
1923	The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page by Burton J. Hendrick
1922	A Daughter of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland
1921	The Americanization of Edward Bok by Edward Bok
1920	The Life of John Marshall by Albert J. Beveridge
1919	The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
1918	Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed by William Cabell Bruce
1917	Julia Ward Howe by Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott

About the Pulitzer Prize for Biography

The Pulitzer Prize for Biography honors the year's finest biography or autobiography by an American author, awarded since 1917. Winners include acclaimed lives of figures from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, by authors such as Robert Caro and David McCullough.

Awarded by: Columbia University
First awarded: 1917
Country: United States
Winner receives: $15,000

When it is announced

Winners and finalists in every category are announced together in early May. See the full announcement calendar.

How to enter

Anyone may enter a book, including the author, for a fee. Books published in the first half of the year are due by mid June and those published in the second half by mid October.

Official prize site. Checked August 2026. Dates move year to year, so confirm on the official site before entering.