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Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
Jason RobertsPulitzer Prize · 2025 · Winner
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
2025 Winner
2025 Shortlist & Longlist
Shortlist
Shortlist
Shortlist
Complete History
2020s
- 2025Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life — Jason Roberts
- 2024King: A Life — Jonathan Eig
- 2023G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century — Beverly Gage
- 2022Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South — Winfred Rembert
- 2021The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X — Les Payne
- 2020Sontag: Her Life and Work — Benjamin Moser
2010s
- 2019The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke — Jeffrey C. Stewart
- 2018Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder — Caroline Fraser
- 2017The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between — Hisham Matar
- 2016Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life — William Finnegan
- 2015The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe — David I. Kertzer
- 2014Margaret Fuller: A New American Life — Megan Marshall
- 2013The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo — Tom Reiss
- 2012George F. Kennan: An American Life — John Lewis Gaddis
- 2011Washington: A Life — Ron Chernow
- 2010The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt — T.J. Stiles
2000s
- 2009American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House — Jon Meacham
- 2008Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father — John Matteson
- 2007The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher — Debby Applegate
- 2006American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer — Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
- 2005de Kooning: An American Master — Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan
- 2004Khrushchev: The Man and His Era — William Taubman
- 2003Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson — Robert A. Caro
- 2002John Adams — David McCullough
- 2001W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919-1963 — David Levering Lewis
- 2000Vera, Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov — Stacy Schiff
1990s
- 1999Lindbergh — A. Scott Berg
- 1998Personal History — Katharine Graham
- 1997Angela's Ashes: A Memoir — Frank McCourt
- 1996God: A Biography — Jack Miles
- 1995Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life — Joan D. Hedrick
- 1994W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 — David Levering Lewis
- 1993Truman — David McCullough
- 1992Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller Jr. — Lewis B. Puller
- 1991Jackson Pollock: An American Saga — Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
- 1990Machiavelli in Hell — Sebastian de Grazia
1980s
- 1989Oscar Wilde — Richard Ellmann
- 1988Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe — David Herbert Donald
- 1987Bearing The Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference — David J. Garrow
- 1986Louise Bogan: A Portrait — Elizabeth Frank
- 1985The Life and Times of Cotton Mather — Kenneth Silverman
- 1984Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 — Louis R. Harlan
- 1983Growing Up — Russell Baker
- 1982Grant: A Biography — William S. McFeely
- 1981Peter the Great: His Life and World — Robert K. Massie
- 1980The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt — Edmund Morris
1970s
- 1979Days of Sorrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews — Leonard Baker
- 1978Samuel Johnson — W. Jackson Bate
- 1977A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence — John E. Mack
- 1976Edith Wharton: A Biography — R. W. B. Lewis
- 1975The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York — Robert Caro
- 1974O'Neill, Son and Artist — Louis Sheaffer
- 1973Luce and His Empire — W. A. Swanberg
- 1972Eleanor and Franklin — Joseph P. Lash
- 1971Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915–1938 — Lawrance Thompson
- 1970Huey Long — Thomas Harry Williams
1960s
- 1969The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends — Benjamin Lawrence Reid
- 1968Memoirs — George F. Kennan
- 1967Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain — Justin Kaplan
- 1966A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House — Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
- 1965Henry Adams, 3 vols. — Ernest Samuels
- 1964John Keats — Walter Jackson Bate
- 1963Henry James — Leon Edel
- 1961Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War — David Donald
- 1960John Paul Jones — Samuel Eliot Morison
1950s
- 1959Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet — Arthur Walworth
- 1958George Washington, vols. I-VII — Douglas Southall Freeman with John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth
- 1957Profiles in Courage — John F. Kennedy
- 1956Benjamin Henry Latrobe — Talbot Faulkner Hamlin
- 1955The Taft Story — William S. White
- 1954The Spirit of St. Louis — Charles A. Lindbergh
- 1953Edmund Pendleton 1721–1803 — David J. Mays
- 1952Charles Evans Hughes — Merlo J. Pusey
- 1951John C. Calhoun: American Portrait — Margaret Louise Coit
- 1950John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy — Samuel Flagg Bemis
1940s
- 1949Roosevelt and Hopkins — Robert E. Sherwood
- 1948Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow — Margaret Clapp
- 1947The Autobiography of William Allen White — William Allen White
- 1946Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir — Linnie Marsh Wolfe
- 1945George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel — Russel Blaine Nye
- 1944The American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse — Carleton Mabee
- 1943Admiral of the Ocean Sea — Samuel Eliot Morison
- 1942Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe — Forrest Wilson
- 1941Jonathan Edwards, 1703–1758: a biography — Ola Elizabeth Winslow
- 1940Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters. Vols. VII and VIII — Ray Stannard Baker
1930s
- 1939Benjamin Franklin — Carl Van Doren
- 1938Andrew Jackson, 2 vols. — Marquis James
- 1937Hamilton Fish — Allan Nevins
- 1936The Thought and Character of William James — Ralph Barton Perry
- 1935R. E. Lee — Douglas S. Freeman
- 1934John Hay — Tyler Dennett
- 1933Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage — Allan Nevins
- 1932Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography — Henry F. Pringle
- 1931Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University, 1869–1901 — Henry James
- 1930The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston — Marquis James
1920s
- 1929The Training of an American: The Earlier Life and Letters of Walter H. Page — Burton J. Hendrick
- 1928The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas — Charles Edward Russell
- 1927Whitman — Emory Holloway
- 1926The Life of Sir William Osler, 2 vols. — Harvey Cushing
- 1925Barrett Wendell and His Letters — M. A. De Wolfe Howe
- 1924From Immigrant to Inventor — Michael I. Pupin
- 1923The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page — Burton J. Hendrick
- 1922A Daughter of the Middle Border — Hamlin Garland
- 1921The Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After — Edward Bok
- 1920The Life of John Marshall, 4 vols. — Albert J. Beveridge
About the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography is awarded annually for a distinguished American biography or autobiography. One of the original Pulitzer categories, it has been awarded since 1917 and is administered by Columbia University. The prize carries a cash award of $15,000 and a certificate. It has recognized some of the most celebrated biographical works in American letters, including Robert Caro's multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, Ron Chernow's Washington: A Life, and Stacy Schiff's Véra. The award covers both biography of any subject — not necessarily American — written by an American author, and autobiography by an American author. Ten people have won the prize twice, including David McCullough, Robert Caro, and David Levering Lewis. In 2024, two prizes were awarded — to Jonathan Eig for King: A Life and Ilyon Woo for Master Slave Husband Wife. Finalists, typically two, are announced alongside the winner each spring. The prize has evolved to embrace a wide range of biographical approaches, from traditional narrative biography to hybrid memoir-history and innovative biographical criticism.
Frequently Asked Questions
- American authors who publish a distinguished biography of any subject, or an autobiography, during the preceding calendar year are eligible.
- No. The subject can be of any nationality, but the author must be American.
- Winners receive $15,000 and a certificate.
- Yes. In 2021, the prize was awarded posthumously to Les Payne (with co-author Tamara Payne), and in 2022 to Winfred Rembert (with co-author Erin I. Kelly).
- Ten people have won twice, including Robert Caro, David McCullough, David Levering Lewis, and Walter Jackson Bate.
- Yes. The prize has no restriction on the subject's status; biographies of living people are eligible.
- Winners are announced each spring, typically in May.