1918: Ernest Poole His Family
1919: Booth Tarkington The Magnificent Ambersons
1920: No award
1921: Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence
1922: Booth Tarkington Alice Adams
1923: Willa Cather One of Ours
1924: Margaret Wilson The Able McLaughlins
1925: Edna Ferber So Big
1926: Sinclair Lewis Arrowsmith
1927: Louis Bromfield Early Autumn
1928: Thornton Wilder The Bridge of San Luis Rey
1929: Julia Peterkin Scarlet Sister Mary
1930: Oliver La Farge Laughing Boy
1931: Margaret Ayer Barnes Years of Grace
1932: Pearl S. Buck The Good Earth
1933: T.S. Stribling The Store
1934: Caroline Miller Lamb in his Bosom
1935: Josephine Winslow Johnson Now in November
1936: Harold Davis Honey in the Horn
1937: Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind
1938: John Phillips Marquand The Late George Apley
1939: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings The Yearling
1940: John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath
1941: No award
1942: Ellen Glasgow In this Our Life
1943: Upton Sinclair Dragon's Teeth
1944: Martin Flavin Journey in the Dark
1945: John Hersey A Bell for Adano
1946: No award
1947: Robert Penn Warren All the King's Men
1948: James A. Michener Tales of the South Pacific
1949: James Gould Cozzens Guard of Honor
1950: A.B. Guthrie The Way West
1951: Conrad Richter The Town
1952: Herman Wouk The Caine Mutiny
1953: Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea
1954: No award
1955: William Faulkner A Fable
1956: Mackinlay Kantor Andersonville
1957: No award
1958: James Agee A Death in the Family
1959: Robert Lewis TaylorThe Travels of Jamie McPheeters
1960: Allen Drury Advise and Consent
1961: Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird
1962: Edwin O'Connor The Edge of Sadness
1963: William Faulkner The Reivers
1964: No award
1965: Shirley Anne Grau The Keepers of the House
1966: Katherine Anne Porter Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
1967: Bernard Malamud The Fixer
1968: William Styron The Confessions of Nat Turner
1969: N. Scott Momaday House Made of Dawn
1970: Jean Stafford Collected Stories
1971: No award
1972: Wallace Stegner The Angle of Repose
1973: Eudora Welty The Optimist's Daughter
1974: No award
1975: Michael Shaara The Killer Angels
1976: Saul Bellow Humboldt's Gift
1977: No award
1978: James Alan McPherson Elbow Room
1979: John Cheever The Stories of John Cheever
1980: Norman Mailer The Executioner's Song
1981: John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces
1982: John Updike Rabbit is Rich
1983: Alice Walker The Color Purple
1984: William Kennedy Ironweed
1985: Alison Lurie Foreign Affairs
1986: Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove
1987: Peter Taylor A Summons to Memphis
1988: Toni Morrison Beloved
1989: Anne Tyler Breathing Lessons
1990: Oscar Hijuelos The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
1991: John Updike Rabbit at Rest
1992: Jane Smiley Thousand Acres
1993: Robert Olen Butler A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
1994: E. Annie Proulx The Shipping News
1995: Carol Shields Stone Diaries
1996: Richard Ford Independence Day
1997: Steven Millhauser Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
1998: Philip Roth American Pastoral
1999: Michael Cunningham The Hours
2000: Jhumpa Lahiri Interpreter of Maladies
2001: Michael Chabon The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
2002: Richard Russo Empire Falls
2003: Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex
2004: Edward P. Jones The Known World