Living Canon

Pulitzer Prizes 1940: Complete list of winners

The 1940 Pulitzer Prizes arrived at a pivotal moment in American culture, when the nation was grappling with economic recovery and growing international tensions. That year’s winners reflected a distinctly American preoccupation with understanding the country’s own past and present—from Lincoln’s trials during wartime to the Dust Bowl desperation captured in The Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck’s sweeping novel took the fiction prize, cementing his reputation as one of the era’s most vital voices, while Carl Sandburg’s monumental biography of Lincoln claimed the history category with its exhaustive examination of the Civil War years. These weren’t safe, nostalgic choices; they were works that engaged directly with American struggle and resilience.

The drama prize went to William Saroyan for The Time of Your Life, a play that offered something quite different—a humanistic celebration of ordinary people in an ordinary San Francisco bar. Meanwhile, Ray Stannard Baker’s scholarly volumes on Woodrow Wilson won the biography award, and Mark Van Doren’s collected poems earned the poetry prize, rounding out a year that honored both grand historical narratives and more intimate artistic visions. Together, the 1940 Pulitzer Prize winners painted a portrait of a nation taking stock of itself through literature.

Below, you’ll find the complete list of winners across all categories from this significant year in the Pulitzer Prizes’ history.

Biography

  • Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters. Vols. VII and VIII by Ray Stannard Baker

Drama

History

Novel

Poetry