Award Winning Biographies and Memoirs

A great biography does two jobs at once, telling one life properly and using it to explain an age. The Pulitzer Prize for Biography has been picking them since 1917 and every winner is here, joined by the memoirs and life writing that won general non fiction prizes instead of the category built for them.

208 books drawn from 13 prize lists, newest first.

• 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution by Amanda Vaill
• 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts
• 2025 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  How to End a Story by Helen Garner
• 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
• 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo
• 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  Question 7 by Richard Flanagan
• 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage
• 2023 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  His Name Is George Floyd by Robert Samuels & Toluse Olorunnipa
• 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature
  Septology by Jon Fosse
• 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South by Winfred Rembert and Erin I. Kelly
• 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  Super-Infinite by Katherine Rundell
• 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature
  The Years by Annie Ernaux
• 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne
• 2020 Royal Society Science Book Prize
  Explaining Humans by Camilla Pang
• 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown
• 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser
• 2020 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel
• 2020 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Dead Are Arising by Les & Tamara Payne
• 2020 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  The Undying by Anne Boyer
• 2019 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
• 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart
• 2019 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
• 2018 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Educated by Tara Westover
• 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser
• 2018 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The New Negro by Jeffrey C. Stewart
• 2017 Caldecott Medal
  Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe
• 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar
• 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan
• 2016 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles
• 2016 Caldecott Medal
  Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear by Sophie Blackall
• 2016 Royal Society Science Book Prize
  The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf
• 2015 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe by David I. Kertzer
• 2014 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
• 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall
• 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature
  Dear Life by Alice Munro
• 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
• 2013 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  The Pike by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
• 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis
• 2012 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
• 2011 Pulitzer Prize for History
  The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner
• 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
• 2010 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Just Kids by Patti Smith
• 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles
• 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
• 2009 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The First Tycoon by T.J. Stiles
• 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History
  The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
• 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson
• 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate
• 2006 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro
• 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
• 2006 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
• 2005 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. Johnson by Jonathan Coe
• 2005 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
• 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan
• 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman
• 2004 Caldecott Medal
  The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein
• 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro
• 2003 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  Pushkin: A Biography by T.J. Binyon
• 2003 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire
• 2002 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Carry Me Home by Diane McWhorter
• 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  John Adams by David McCullough
• 2002 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro
• 2001 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix
• 2001 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon
• 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919-1963 by David Levering Lewis
• 2000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  Berlioz: Servitude and Greatness by David Cairns
• 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Vera, Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov by Stacy Schiff
• 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg
• 1999 Caldecott Medal
  Snowflake Bentley by Mary Azarian
• 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  The Hours by Michael Cunningham
• 1999 Royal Society Science Book Prize
  The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman
• 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Personal History by Katharine Graham
• 1997 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  American Sphinx by Joseph J. Ellis
• 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
• 1997 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
• 1996 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  An American Requiem by James Carroll
• 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  God: A Biography by Jack Miles
• 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life by Joan D. Hedrick
• 1995 Pulitzer Prize for History
  No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
• 1994 Caldecott Medal
  Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say
• 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 by David Levering Lewis
• 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Truman by David McCullough
• 1992 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Becoming a Man by Paul Monette
• 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller Jr. by Lewis B. Puller Jr.
• 1991 Pulitzer Prize for History
  A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
• 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
• 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Machiavelli in Hell by Sebastian de Grazia
• 1989 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
• 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann
• 1988 Newbery Medal
  Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman
• 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe by David Herbert Donald
• 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J. Garrow
• 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature
  Less Than One by Joseph Brodsky
• 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Louise Bogan: A Portrait by Elizabeth Frank
• 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Life and Times of Cotton Mather by Kenneth Silverman
• 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Yin by Carolyn Kizer
• 1984 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy by Robert V. Remini
• 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 by Louis R. Harlan
• 1984 Caldecott Medal
  The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot by Alice and Martin Provensen
• 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Growing Up by Russell Baker
• 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Grant: A Biography by William S. McFeely
• 1981 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston
• 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie
• 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
• 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Days of Sorrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews by Leonard Baker
• 1979 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
• 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate
• 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence by John E. Mack
• 1977 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Dispatches by Michael Herr
• 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Edith Wharton: A Biography by R. W. B. Lewis
• 1976 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Lamy of Santa Fe by Paul Horgan
• 1975 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Jefferson and His Time by Dumas Malone
• 1975 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Life of Emily Dickinson by Richard B. Sewall
• 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro
• 1974 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian by John Clive
• 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  O'Neill, Son and Artist by Louis Sheaffer
• 1973 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  George Washington: Anguish and Farewell by James Thomas Flexner
• 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Luce and His Empire by W. A. Swanberg
• 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Eleanor and Franklin by Joseph P. Lash
• 1972 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45 by Barbara W. Tuchman
• 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915–1938 by Lawrance Thompson
• 1971 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom by James MacGregor Burns
• 1970 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Gandhi's Truth by Erik H. Erikson
• 1970 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Huey Long by T. Harry Williams
• 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Huey Long by Thomas Harry Williams
• 1970 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department by Dean Acheson
• 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends by Benjamin Lawrence Reid
• 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Memoirs by George F. Kennan
• 1968 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Memoirs (1925-1950) by George F. Kennan
• 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain by Justin Kaplan
• 1966 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
• 1965 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Henry Adams by Ernest Samuels
• 1965 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Life of Lenin by Louis Fischer
• 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  John Keats by Walter Jackson Bate
• 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Henry James by Leon Edel
• 1963 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Henry James, Vol. II: The Conquest of London and Vol. III: The Middle Years by Leon Edel
• 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War by David Donald
• 1960 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Heart's Needle by W. D. Snodgrass
• 1960 Pulitzer Prize for History
  In the Days of McKinley by Margaret Leech
• 1960 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  James Joyce by Richard Ellmann
• 1960 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  John Paul Jones by Samuel Eliot Morison
• 1959 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël by J. Christopher Herold
• 1959 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Selected Poems 1928–1958 by Stanley Kunitz
• 1959 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet by Arthur Walworth
• 1958 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  George Washington, Vols. I-VII by Douglas Southall Freeman, John Alexander Carroll, and Mary Wells Ashworth
• 1958 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Promises: Poems 1954–1956 by Robert Penn Warren
• 1958 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Lion and the Throne by Catherine Drinker Bowen
• 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy
• 1956 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  An American in Italy by Herbert Kubly
• 1956 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Benjamin Henry Latrobe by Talbot Faulkner Hamlin
• 1956 Newbery Medal
  Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham
• 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Taft Story by William S. White
• 1954 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles A. Lindbergh
• 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Edmund Pendleton 1721–1803 by David J. Mays
• 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Charles Evans Hughes by Merlo J. Pusey
• 1951 Newbery Medal
  Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates
• 1951 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Herman Melville by Newton Arvin
• 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  John C. Calhoun: American Portrait by Margaret Louise Coit
• 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy by Samuel Flagg Bemis
• 1950 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph L. Rusk
• 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Roosevelt and Hopkins by Robert E. Sherwood
• 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow by Margaret Clapp
• 1947 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Autobiography of William Allen White by William Allen White
• 1947 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• 1946 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir by Linnie Marsh Wolfe
• 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel by Russel Blaine Nye
• 1944 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse by Carleton Mabee
• 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Admiral of the Ocean Sea by Samuel Eliot Morison
• 1943 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Paul Revere and the World He Lived In by Esther Forbes
• 1942 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe by Forrest Wilson
• 1942 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  The Dust Which Is God by William Rose Benét
• 1941 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Jonathan Edwards, 1703–1758: A Biography by Ola Elizabeth Winslow
• 1940 Caldecott Medal
  Abraham Lincoln by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire
• 1940 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Abraham Lincoln: The War Years by Carl Sandburg
• 1940 Newbery Medal
  Daniel Boone by James Daugherty
• 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters, Vols. VII and VIII by Ray Stannard Baker
• 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Benjamin Franklin by Carl Van Doren
• 1938 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Pedlar's Progress: The Life of Bronson Alcott by Odell Shepard
• 1938 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Life of Andrew Jackson by Marquis James
• 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Hamilton Fish by Allan Nevins
• 1936 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Thought and Character of William James by Ralph Barton Perry
• 1935 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  R. E. Lee by Douglas S. Freeman
• 1934 Newbery Medal
  Invincible Louisa by Cornelia Meigs
• 1934 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  John Hay by Tyler Dennett
• 1933 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage by Allan Nevins
• 1933 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
• 1932 Pulitzer Prize for History
  My Experiences in the World War by John J. Pershing
• 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography by Henry F. Pringle
• 1931 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University, 1869–1909 by Henry James
• 1930 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston by Marquis James
• 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Training of an American by Burton J. Hendrick
• 1928 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas by Charles Edward Russell
• 1927 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Whitman by Emory Holloway
• 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Life of Sir William Osler by Harvey Cushing
• 1925 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Barrett Wendell and His Letters by M. A. De Wolfe Howe
• 1924 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  From Immigrant to Inventor by Michael I. Pupin
• 1923 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page by Burton J. Hendrick
• 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  A Daughter of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland
• 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Americanization of Edward Bok by Edward Bok
• 1920 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Life of John Marshall by Albert J. Beveridge
• 1919 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
• 1918 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed by William Cabell Bruce
• 1917 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Julia Ward Howe by Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott
• 1861 Classic Books
  Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
• 1853 Classic Books
  Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
• 1845 Classic Books
  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass