Columbia University administers the Pulitzer prizes annually. Ernest Poole received the first Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1918 in recognition of his novel Macmillan, published in 1917. Although an annual prize, Columbia has skipped some years.
Booth Tarkington earned the first of two Pulitzers in four years with The Magnificent Ambersons. In 1920, just the third year for the award, Columbia did not award a Pulitzer, underscoring the complexities of the informal selection process.
In short, the award’s namesake, Joseph Pulitzer, had outlined his concept for the program in his will, stating that the award should go to a book reflective of the “whole atmosphere of American life.” Nicholas Butler, president of Columbia University and a member of the Pulitzer committee, changed the wording to “wholesome,” a seemingly minor adjustment that shifted the award’s focus from artistic expression to societal ethics for years to come. Joseph Hergesheimer’s Java Head stood as the frontrunner for the Pulitzer in 1920, but the committee decided the novel was not wholesome enough, so no award was issued.
Two decades would pass before the Pulitzer committee skipped issuing an award. Once again, the decision was based on Butler’s moral outrage. In 1941, the prize jurors unanimously voted to give the award to Ernest Hemingway for his Spanish Civil War novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Unanimous, that is, except for Butler, who described the brook as offensive and profane. The other jurors followed suit, though Hemingway would later win the prize for his novella The Old Man and the Sea.
Columbia skipped awarding a prize for fiction in 1946 under different circumstances. The jury had been split the previous year before ultimately giving the award to John Hershey’s A Bell for Adano. In 1946, however, the committee of three jurors could not agree. Each had a selection for the prize that year, and none backed down, resulting in the third instance of no Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Hemingway received his Pulitzer Prize in 1953, but 1954 marked the fourth occasion with no prize. The lack of a prize resulted in the jurors failing to support any of the other juror’s nominations. However, each juror had multiple suggestions this time, including The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. Jurors spent much of their time debating the declining state of the American novel. As a result, the committee agreed to observe three-year tenures for jurors, allowing new tastes and perspectives to cycle through the program.
No author received the award in 1957, but the decision to bring in new jurors had a positive effect. There have only been two years without a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction since 1957: 1964 and 2012. In 1964, the committee did not award all three prizes, the first time since 1917, as jurors also failed to vote on winners for drama or music.
About four out of five Americans aged 16 and older describe themselves as occasional readers for pleasure. The figure drops when focusing on fiction: 46 percent of Americans ended 2023 without reading a novel.
Reading fiction for pleasure offers several benefits, from decreased stress levels to increased capacity for empathy. Individuals who want to read more fiction can look to major awards programs for suggestions.
For example, many examples of classic literature have won major awards, such as the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Past winners include Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. In contrast, winners in recent years range from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. However, there have been several occasions on which the Pulitzer committee has opted not to issue an award.
