Winners

What Shaped 1937

No American novel of the century sold like Gone with the Wind, and few have been argued about as long. Mitchell's Georgia is seen from inside the plantation household, and the version of slavery and Reconstruction it offered shaped the popular understanding of the period for generations, which is exactly why the book is now read as much for what it reveals about 1937 as about the 1860s. The film would follow two years later and fix that version still further.

Published in 1937, Won Nothing

Prize committees miss books every year. These came out in 1937 and took no major award.

  • No major prize
    Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

    George Milton and Lennie Small, two itinerant ranch workers during the Depression, move from job to job across California sharing a single dream: a...

  • No major prize
    The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

    Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit who prizes his quiet home and his regular meals above any adventure, is talked into joining thirteen dwarves led by Thorin...

  • No major prize
    Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

    Janie Crawford, back in the all Black Florida town of Eatonville after years away, tells her friend Phoeby the story of her life and her three...

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