On Monday, we’ll learn who won this year’s Pulitzer Prizes. Another novel will join a distinguished list, rubbing elbows with Gone With the Wind, The Grapes of Wrath, The Old Man and the Sea, Beloved and many others.
It’s sure to win a bit of immortality for the author, right? Well, not necessarily.
We’re going out on a limb to say there are a bunch of Pulitzer Prize-winning novels you’ve probably never heard of — unless you’re some kind of literary wunderkind.
Were these books great in their time, but only in their time? Were the Pulitzer jurors simply out to lunch? Or maybe the literary pickings are just slim some years.
Here’s a list of Pulitzer novels we’ve forgotten. Add your own forgotten fiction in the comment field below — or tell us what we’ve missed.
Books mentioned
Books mentioned in piece:
His Family by Ernest Poole, 1918 (Project Gutenberg)
Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady (Amazon)
Scarlet Sister Mary (Brown Thrasher Books) (Amazon)
Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story (Amazon)
Years of Grace (Amazon)
The Store (Library Alabama Classics) (Amazon)
Lamb in His Bosom (Modern Southern Classics) (Amazon)
Now in November (Amazon)
Honey in the Horn (Amazon)
Journey in the Dark (Amazon)
The Way West (Amazon)
The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana)(Amazon)
The Edge of Sadness (The Loyola Classics Series) (Amazon)
Elbow Room(Amazon)