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.
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The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
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...
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Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate
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.
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The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
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...
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The Power Broker by Robert Caro
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...
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American Prometheus by Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin
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...
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Master of the Senate by Robert Caro
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...
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John Adams by David McCullough
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")...
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W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and The American Century by David Levering Lewis
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...
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Julia Ward Howe by Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe Elliott
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...
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Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed by William Cabell Bruce
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",...
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John Hay by Tyler Dennett
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.
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The Life of Andrew Jackson by Marquis James
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...
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Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters by Ray Stannard Baker
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...
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The American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F B. Morse by Carleton Mabee
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.
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Edmund Pendleton 1721–1803 by David J. Mays
Edmund Pendleton (September 9, 1721 – October 23, 1803) was a Virginia politician, lawyer and judge, active in the American Revolutionary War.
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O'Neill, Son and Artist by Louis Sheaffer
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...
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A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T E. Lawrence by John E. Mack
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...
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Days of Sorrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews by Leonard Baker
Leo Baeck (23 May 1873 – 2 November 1956) was a 20th century German-Polish-Jewish Rabbi, scholar, and a leader of Progressive Judaism.
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Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 by Louis R. Harlan
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 ...
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The Life and Times of Cotton Mather by Kenneth Silverman
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...
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Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J. Garrow
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...
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God: A Biography by Jack Miles
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...
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Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
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 ...
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Personal History by Katharine Graham
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 ...
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Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg
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 ...
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W.E.B. Dubois : Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 by David Levering Lewis
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...
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Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
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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The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles
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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Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
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...
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George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis
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...
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The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
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...
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Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall
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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The Pope and Mussolini by David I. Kertzer
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 ...
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Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan
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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The Return by Hisham Matar
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 ...
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Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser
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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The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart
The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke is a 2018 biography of Alain LeRoy Locke written by historian Jeffrey C. Stewart. The biography examines the life of Locke, an African-American activist and s...
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Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser
Sontag: Her Life and Work is a 2019 biography of American writer Susan Sontag written by Benjamin Moser. The book won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. Judges of the prize ca...
