1919: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
1920: no award given
1922: Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
1923: One of Ours by Willa Cather
1924: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
1925: So Big by Edna Ferber
1926: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (declined prize)
1927: Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield
1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1929: Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1930: Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge
1931: Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
1933: The Store by Thomas Sigismund Stribling
1934: Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
1935: Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936: Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
1937: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
1938: The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand
1939: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1940: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
1941: no award given
1942: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
1943: Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
1944: Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
1945: A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
1946: no award given
1947: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
1951: The Town by Conrad Richter
1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1954: No award given
1955: A Fable by William Faulkner
1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
1957: No award given
1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner
1964: No award given
1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1970: The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
1971: No award given
1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
1974: No award given
1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
1977: No award given
1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (posthumous win)
1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy
1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison
1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
1991: Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford
1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth
1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham
2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo
2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
2006: March by Geraldine Brooks
2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding
