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All awards · Topic: Literary Biography · Sorted by score · 265 books · filtered
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Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915Louis R. Harlan197334 pts4 wins4 listsOxford University PressBiographyBlack History & Culture+1
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls WilderCaroline Fraser201834 pts4 wins6 listsMetropolitan BooksBiographyLiterature & Writers+1
The New Negro: The Life of Alain LockeJeffrey C. Stewart201930 pts4 wins5 listsOxford University PressBiographyLiterary Biography+1
Edith Wharton: A BiographyR. W. B. Lewis197528 pts2 wins4 listsHarperBiographyLiterature & Writers+2
Things in Nature Merely GrowYiyun Li202526 pts2 wins4 listsFarrar, Straus and GirouxMemoir & AutobiographyLiterature & Writers+2
Shot in the HeartMikal Gilmore199420 pts2 wins2 listsPenguin BooksMemoir & AutobiographyLiterary Biography+1
Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a MarriageJonny Steinberg202320 pts1 wins4 listsHarperCollinsBiographyLiterary Biography
Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted LifeRuth Franklin201718 pts3 wins3 listsLiverightBiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
The Pike: Gabriele D'Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of WarLucy Hughes-Hallett201318 pts3 wins3 listsFourth EstateBiographyLiterature & Writers+2
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild WestRebecca Solnit200318 pts2 wins3 listsPenguin BooksTechnologyLiterature & Writers+2
Waldo Emerson: A BiographyGay Wilson Allen198118 pts1 wins3 listsPenguin BooksBiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
Alice James: A BiographyJean Strouse198018 pts1 wins3 listsNew York Review BooksBiographyLiterary Biography
Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the FleshJohn Lahr200716 pts1 wins3 listsW. W. NortonBiographyMemoir & Personal History+2
Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. JohnsonAdam Sisman200016 pts1 wins3 listsPenguin Publishing GroupBiographyLiterature & Writers+1
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia PlathHeather Clark202016 pts1 wins4 listsJonathan CapeBiographyLiterary Biography
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became ShakespeareStephen Greenblatt200416 pts0 wins4 listsW. W. NortonBiographyLiterary Biography
Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949Doris Lessing199414 pts2 wins2 listsHarperCollinsMemoir & AutobiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
Alexander Pope: A LifeMaynard Mack198514 pts2 wins2 listsW. W. NortonBiographyLiterature & Writers+1
La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty—San Juan and New YorkOscar Lewis196614 pts2 wins2 listsRandom HouseSociety & CultureLiterary Biography
John Keats: The Making of a PoetAileen Ward196314 pts2 wins2 listsSecker & WarburgBiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
When Women Kill: Four Crimes RetoldAlia Trabucco Zerán202214 pts1 wins2 listsCoffee House PressTrue Crime & JusticeMemoir & Personal History+2
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the RipperHallie Rubenhold201914 pts1 wins2 listsDoubledayTrue Crime & JusticeLiterature & Writers+1
Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against LynchingPaula J. Giddings200914 pts1 wins2 listsHarperCollinsBiographyLiterary Biography
Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of ToleranceIan Buruma200614 pts1 wins2 listsPenguin PressTrue Crime & JusticeLiterature & Writers+2
Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. JohnsonJonathan Coe200414 pts1 wins2 listsPicadorBiographyLiterary Biography
Pushkin: A BiographyT. J. Binyon199914 pts1 wins2 listsPenguin Publishing GroupBiographyLiterary Biography
William Morris: A Life for Our TimeFiona MacCarthy199514 pts1 wins2 listsFaber & FaberBiographyLiterature & Writers+2
Harriet Beecher Stowe: A LifeJoan D. Hedrick199414 pts1 wins2 listsOxford University PressBiographyAmerican Civil War+1
Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas WolfeDavid Herbert Donald198814 pts1 wins2 listsBloomsburyBiographyLiterature & Writers+2
Louise Bogan: A PortraitElizabeth Frank198514 pts1 wins2 listsColumbia University PressBiographyLiterature & Writers+1
Nathaniel Hawthorne in His TimesJames R. Mellow198214 pts1 wins2 listsHoughton MifflinBiographyLiterary Biography
And I Worked at the Writer's Trade: Chapters of Literary History 1918–1978Malcolm Cowley197814 pts1 wins2 listsPenguin BooksArts & CriticismLiterature & Writers+2
Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A BiographyJustin Kaplan196614 pts1 wins2 listsSimon & SchusterBiographyLiterary Biography
Nora: The Real Life of Molly BloomBrenda Maddox198814 pts1 wins2 listsMariner BooksBiographyLiterary Biography
Bolivar: American LiberatorMarie Arana201314 pts1 wins3 listsSimon & SchusterBiographyLatin America & the Caribbean+1
Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow SouthWinfred Rembert, Erin I. Kelly202112 pts1 wins2 listsBloomsburyMemoir & AutobiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana AlliluyevaRosemary Sullivan201512 pts2 wins3 listsHarperCollinsBiographyLiterary Biography
Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne MooreLinda Leavell201312 pts2 wins3 listsFarrar, Straus and GirouxBiographyLiterature & Writers+2
Coleridge: Darker ReflectionsRichard Holmes199512 pts1 wins3 listsHodder & StoughtonBiographyLiterature & Writers+1
John KeatsWalter Jackson Bate196312 pts1 wins3 listsHarvard University PressBiographyLiterary Biography
Baldwin: A Love StoryNicholas Boggs202512 pts1 wins4 listsFarrar, Straus and GirouxBiographyLiterature & Writers+2
Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane FranklinJill Lepore201312 pts1 wins4 listsKnopfBiographyLiterature & Writers+2
Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen CranePaul Auster202110 pts1 wins1 listsHenry Holt and CompanyBiographyLiterature & Writers+1
Mad at the World: A Life of John SteinbeckWilliam Souder202010 pts1 wins1 listsW. W. NortonBiographyLiterature & Writers+1
Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From HaitiAmy Wilentz201310 pts1 wins1 listsSimon & SchusterMemoir & AutobiographyLiterary Biography+2
Margaret Fuller: A New American LifeMegan Marshall201310 pts1 wins1 listsHoughton Mifflin HarcourtBiographyMemoir & Personal History+2
Leviathan or, The WhalePhilip Hoare200910 pts1 wins1 listsFourth EstateNature & EnvironmentLiterary Biography
James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. SheldonJulie Phillips200610 pts1 wins1 listsSt. Martin's PressBiographyLiterary Biography
1599: A Year in the Life of William ShakespeareJames S. Shapiro200510 pts1 wins1 listsFaber & FaberArts & CriticismLiterary Biography
Selected Non-FictionsJorge Luis Borges199910 pts1 wins1 listsPenguin BooksArts & CriticismLiterary Biography
Vera, Mrs. Vladimir NabokovStacy Schiff199910 pts1 wins1 listsKuperard PublishersBiographyLiterary Biography
Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her WorldCarol Brightman199310 pts1 wins1 listsMethuenBiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
Isak Dinesen: The Life of a StorytellerJudith Thurman198410 pts1 wins1 listsPenguin BooksBiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
Minor CharactersJoyce Johnson198410 pts1 wins1 listsPocket BooksMemoir & AutobiographyLiterary Biography
Solzhenitsyn: A BiographyMichael Scammell198410 pts1 wins1 listsRoutledgeBiographyLiterary Biography
Lauren Bacall by MyselfLauren Bacall198010 pts1 wins1 listsBallantine BooksMemoir & AutobiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
Samuel Beckett: A BiographyDeirdre Bair197810 pts1 wins1 listsSimon & SchusterBiographyLiterary Biography
Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850–1859Joseph Frank197710 pts1 wins1 listsPrinceton University PressBiographyMemoir & Personal History+2
The Life of Emily DickinsonRichard B. Sewall197610 pts1 wins1 listsHarvard University PressBiographyLiterary Biography
Deeper into MoviesPauline Kael197310 pts1 wins1 listsWarner BooksArts & CriticismLiterature & Writers+1
The Life of LeninLouis Fischer196410 pts1 wins1 listsWeidenfeld & NicolsonBiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
The Life of Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph L. Rusk194910 pts1 wins1 listsScribnerBiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
Listen! The WindAnne Morrow Lindbergh193810 pts1 wins1 listsHarcourt, Brace and CompanyMemoir & AutobiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
The Country KitchenDella T. Lutes193610 pts1 wins1 listsLittle, BrownSociety & CultureLiterature & Writers+1
Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His WorldDonald R. Howard198710 pts1 wins1 listsDuttonBiographyLiterature & Writers+2
How To Live, Or A Life Of MontaigneSarah Bakewell201010 pts1 wins1 listsUnknown imprintBiographyLiterary Biography
The Life of Langston Hughes, Vol. I: 1902-1941Arnold Rampersad198610 pts1 wins1 listsUnknown imprintBiographyLiterary Biography
Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban BoyCarlos Eire200310 pts1 wins1 listsFree PressMemoir & AutobiographyLiterary Biography
Men We ReapedJesmyn Ward201310 pts1 wins3 listsBloomsburyMemoir & AutobiographyMemoir & Personal History+1
Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, ManhattanDarryl Pinckney20228 pts1 wins2 listsUnknown imprintMemoir & AutobiographyLiterature & Writers+2
The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an AgeLeo Damrosch20198 pts1 wins2 listsYale University PressBiographyIntellectual Biography+3
Strindberg: A LifeSue Prideaux20138 pts1 wins2 listsYale University PressBiographyLiterary Biography
Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life and Lost 1934-1961Paul Hendrickson20118 pts1 wins2 listsKnopfBiographyLiterary Biography+1
Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century SkepticMichael Scammell20098 pts1 wins2 listsRandom HouseBiographyLiterature & Writers+1
Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc GodardRichard Brody20088 pts1 wins2 listsMacmillanBiographyLiterature & Writers+1
The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume II, 1941–1967: I Dream a WorldArnold Rampersad19888 pts1 wins2 listsOxford University PressBiographyLiterary Biography
George Eliot: A BiographyGordon S. Haight19688 pts1 wins2 listsOxford University PressBiographyLiterary Biography
The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and IndependenceDavid Waldstreicher20238 pts1 wins2 listsUnknown imprintBiographyLiterary Biography
The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New YorkerAmy Reading20258 pts0 wins2 listsMariner BooksBiographyMemoir & Personal History+2
Fortune’s Fool: The Life of John Wilkes BoothTerry Alford20158 pts0 wins3 listsOxford University PressBiographyLiterary Biography
The Light of the World: A MemoirElizabeth Alexander20158 pts0 wins2 listsUnknown imprintMemoir & AutobiographyLiterary Biography+1
Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American MasterpieceMichael Gorra20128 pts0 wins2 listsW. W. NortonArts & CriticismMemoir & Personal History+1
The Secret Lives Of Somerset Maugham: A BiographySelina Hastings20108 pts0 wins2 listsRandom HouseBiographyLiterary Biography
D.H. Lawrence: The Story of a MarriageBrenda Maddox19948 pts0 wins2 listsSimon & SchusterBiographyLiterature & Writers+2
One Writer’s BeginningsEudora Welty19848 pts0 wins2 listsHarvard University PressMemoir & AutobiographyLiterary Biography+1
Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860–1865Joseph Frank19778 pts0 wins2 listsPrinceton University PressBiographyEurope & Russia+2
Lamy of Santa FePaul Horgan19768 pts0 wins2 listsWesleyan University PressBiographyMemoir & Personal History+2
1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of LearJames Shapiro20156 pts1 wins2 listsFaber & FaberBiographyLiterature & Writers+2
The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common ParadiseOlivia Laing20246 pts0 wins2 listsKnopfSociety & CultureTravel, Exploration & Place+2
Forty-One False Starts: Essays on Artists and WritersJanet Malcolm20136 pts0 wins2 listsFarrar, Straus and GirouxArts & CriticismMemoir & Personal History+1
A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian HellmanAlice Kessler-Harris20126 pts0 wins2 listsBloomsburyBiographyLiterature & Writers+2
| 1973 | Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 | Louis R. Harlan | Biography | 34 | 4 | 4 | Oxford University Press | Oxford University Press |
| 2018 | Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder | Caroline Fraser | Biography | 34 | 4 | 6 | Metropolitan Books | Macmillan |
| 2019 | The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke | Jeffrey C. Stewart | Biography | 30 | 4 | 5 | Oxford University Press | Oxford University Press |
| 1978 | Samuel Johnson | Walter Jackson Bate | Biography | 28 | 2 | 4 | Harcourt | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| 1975 | Edith Wharton: A Biography | R. W. B. Lewis | Biography | 28 | 2 | 4 | Harper | HarperCollins |
| 2025 | Things in Nature Merely Grow | Yiyun Li | Memoir & Autobiography | 26 | 2 | 4 | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | Macmillan |
| 1994 | Shot in the Heart | Mikal Gilmore | Memoir & Autobiography | 20 | 2 | 2 | Penguin Books | Penguin Random House |
| 2023 | Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage | Jonny Steinberg | Biography | 20 | 1 | 4 | HarperCollins | HarperCollins |
| 2017 | Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life | Ruth Franklin | Biography | 18 | 3 | 3 | Liveright | W. W. Norton & Company |
| 2013 | The Pike: Gabriele D'Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War | Lucy Hughes-Hallett | Biography | 18 | 3 | 3 | Fourth Estate | HarperCollins |
| 2009 | Cheever: A Life | Blake Bailey | Biography | 18 | 2 | 3 | Vintage Books | Penguin Random House |
| 2003 | River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West | Rebecca Solnit | Technology | 18 | 2 | 3 | Penguin Books | Penguin Random House |
| 1981 | Waldo Emerson: A Biography | Gay Wilson Allen | Biography | 18 | 1 | 3 | Penguin Books | Penguin Random House |
| 1980 | Alice James: A Biography | Jean Strouse | Biography | 18 | 1 | 3 | New York Review Books | New York Review Books |
| 2007 | Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh | John Lahr | Biography | 16 | 1 | 3 | W. W. Norton | W. W. Norton & Company |
| 2000 | Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson | Adam Sisman | Biography | 16 | 1 | 3 | Penguin Publishing Group | Penguin Random House |
| 2020 | Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath | Heather Clark | Biography | 16 | 1 | 4 | Jonathan Cape | Penguin Random House |
| 2004 | Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare | Stephen Greenblatt | Biography | 16 | 0 | 4 | W. W. Norton | W. W. Norton & Company |
| 1994 | Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 | Doris Lessing | Memoir & Autobiography | 14 | 2 | 2 | HarperCollins | HarperCollins |
| 1985 | Alexander Pope: A Life | Maynard Mack | Biography | 14 | 2 | 2 | W. W. Norton | W. W. Norton & Company |
| 1966 | La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty—San Juan and New York | Oscar Lewis | Society & Culture | 14 | 2 | 2 | Random House | Penguin Random House |
| 1963 | John Keats: The Making of a Poet | Aileen Ward | Biography | 14 | 2 | 2 | Secker & Warburg | Penguin Random House |
| 2022 | When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold | Alia Trabucco Zerán | True Crime & Justice | 14 | 1 | 2 | Coffee House Press | Coffee House Press |
| 2019 | The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper | Hallie Rubenhold | True Crime & Justice | 14 | 1 | 2 | Doubleday | Penguin Random House |
| 2009 | Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching | Paula J. Giddings | Biography | 14 | 1 | 2 | HarperCollins | HarperCollins |
| 2006 | Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance | Ian Buruma | True Crime & Justice | 14 | 1 | 2 | Penguin Press | Penguin Random House |
| 2004 | Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. Johnson | Jonathan Coe | Biography | 14 | 1 | 2 | Picador | Macmillan |
| 1999 | Pushkin: A Biography | T. J. Binyon | Biography | 14 | 1 | 2 | Penguin Publishing Group | Penguin Random House |
| 1995 | William Morris: A Life for Our Time | Fiona MacCarthy | Biography | 14 | 1 | 2 | Faber & Faber | Faber & Faber |
| 1994 | Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life | Joan D. Hedrick | Biography | 14 | 1 | 2 | Oxford University Press | Oxford University Press |
| 1988 | Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe | David Herbert Donald | Biography | 14 | 1 | 2 | Bloomsbury | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| 1987 | Hemingway | Kenneth S. Lynn | Biography | 14 | 1 | 2 | Abacus | Hachette UK |
| 1985 | Louise Bogan: A Portrait | Elizabeth Frank | Biography | 14 | 1 | 2 | Columbia University Press | Columbia University Press |
| 1982 | Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times | James R. Mellow | Biography | 14 | 1 | 2 | Houghton Mifflin | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| 1978 | And I Worked at the Writer's Trade: Chapters of Literary History 1918–1978 | Malcolm Cowley | Arts & Criticism | 14 | 1 | 2 | Penguin Books | Penguin Random House |
| 1966 | Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography | Justin Kaplan | Biography | 14 | 1 | 2 | Simon & Schuster | Simon & Schuster |
| 1988 | Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom | Brenda Maddox | Biography | 14 | 1 | 2 | Mariner Books | HarperCollins |
| 2013 | Bolivar: American Liberator | Marie Arana | Biography | 14 | 1 | 3 | Simon & Schuster | Simon & Schuster |
| 2021 | Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South | Winfred Rembert, Erin I. Kelly | Memoir & Autobiography | 12 | 1 | 2 | Bloomsbury | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| 2015 | Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva | Rosemary Sullivan | Biography | 12 | 2 | 3 | HarperCollins | HarperCollins |
| 2013 | Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore | Linda Leavell | Biography | 12 | 2 | 3 | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | Macmillan |
| 1995 | Coleridge: Darker Reflections | Richard Holmes | Biography | 12 | 1 | 3 | Hodder & Stoughton | Hachette UK |
| 1963 | John Keats | Walter Jackson Bate | Biography | 12 | 1 | 3 | Harvard University Press | Harvard University Press |
| 2025 | Baldwin: A Love Story | Nicholas Boggs | Biography | 12 | 1 | 4 | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | Macmillan |
| 2013 | Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin | Jill Lepore | Biography | 12 | 1 | 4 | Knopf | Penguin Random House |
| 2021 | Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane | Paul Auster | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Henry Holt and Company | Macmillan |
| 2020 | Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck | William Souder | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | W. W. Norton | W. W. Norton & Company |
| 2013 | Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti | Amy Wilentz | Memoir & Autobiography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Simon & Schuster | Simon & Schuster |
| 2013 | Margaret Fuller: A New American Life | Megan Marshall | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| 2009 | Leviathan or, The Whale | Philip Hoare | Nature & Environment | 10 | 1 | 1 | Fourth Estate | HarperCollins |
| 2006 | James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon | Julie Phillips | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | St. Martin's Press | Macmillan |
| 2005 | 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare | James S. Shapiro | Arts & Criticism | 10 | 1 | 1 | Faber & Faber | Faber & Faber |
| 1999 | Selected Non-Fictions | Jorge Luis Borges | Arts & Criticism | 10 | 1 | 1 | Penguin Books | Penguin Random House |
| 1999 | Vera, Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov | Stacy Schiff | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Kuperard Publishers | Kuperard Publishers |
| 1993 | Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World | Carol Brightman | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Methuen | Methuen Publishing |
| 1985 | Henry James: A Life | Leon Edel | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Harper & Row | HarperCollins |
| 1984 | Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller | Judith Thurman | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Penguin Books | Penguin Random House |
| 1984 | Minor Characters | Joyce Johnson | Memoir & Autobiography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Pocket Books | Simon & Schuster |
| 1984 | Solzhenitsyn: A Biography | Michael Scammell | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Routledge | Taylor & Francis |
| 1980 | Lauren Bacall by Myself | Lauren Bacall | Memoir & Autobiography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Ballantine Books | Penguin Random House |
| 1978 | Samuel Beckett: A Biography | Deirdre Bair | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Simon & Schuster | Simon & Schuster |
| 1977 | Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850–1859 | Joseph Frank | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Princeton University Press | Princeton University Press |
| 1976 | The Life of Emily Dickinson | Richard B. Sewall | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Harvard University Press | Harvard University Press |
| 1973 | Deeper into Movies | Pauline Kael | Arts & Criticism | 10 | 1 | 1 | Warner Books | Hachette Book Group |
| 1964 | The Life of Lenin | Louis Fischer | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | Hachette UK |
| 1949 | The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson | Ralph L. Rusk | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Scribner | Simon & Schuster |
| 1938 | Listen! The Wind | Anne Morrow Lindbergh | Memoir & Autobiography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Harcourt, Brace and Company | Harcourt, Brace and Company |
| 1936 | The Country Kitchen | Della T. Lutes | Society & Culture | 10 | 1 | 1 | Little, Brown | Hachette Book Group |
| 1987 | Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World | Donald R. Howard | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Dutton | Penguin Random House |
| 2010 | How To Live, Or A Life Of Montaigne | Sarah Bakewell | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Unknown | Not yet sourced |
| 1970 | Huey Long | T. Harry William | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Unknown | Not yet sourced |
| 1986 | The Life of Langston Hughes, Vol. I: 1902-1941 | Arnold Rampersad | Biography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Unknown | Not yet sourced |
| 2003 | Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy | Carlos Eire | Memoir & Autobiography | 10 | 1 | 1 | Free Press | Simon & Schuster |
| 2013 | Men We Reaped | Jesmyn Ward | Memoir & Autobiography | 10 | 1 | 3 | Bloomsbury | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| 2022 | Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan | Darryl Pinckney | Memoir & Autobiography | 8 | 1 | 2 | Unknown | Riverrun |
| 2019 | The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age | Leo Damrosch | Biography | 8 | 1 | 2 | Yale University Press | Yale University Press |
| 2013 | Strindberg: A Life | Sue Prideaux | Biography | 8 | 1 | 2 | Yale University Press | Yale University Press |
| 2011 | Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life and Lost 1934-1961 | Paul Hendrickson | Biography | 8 | 1 | 2 | Knopf | Penguin Random House |
| 2009 | Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic | Michael Scammell | Biography | 8 | 1 | 2 | Random House | Penguin Random House |
| 2008 | Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard | Richard Brody | Biography | 8 | 1 | 2 | Macmillan | Macmillan |
| 1998 | Victor Hugo: A Biography | Graham Robb | Biography | 8 | 1 | 2 | Pan Macmillan | Macmillan |
| 1988 | The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume II, 1941–1967: I Dream a World | Arnold Rampersad | Biography | 8 | 1 | 2 | Oxford University Press | Oxford University Press |
| 1968 | George Eliot: A Biography | Gordon S. Haight | Biography | 8 | 1 | 2 | Oxford University Press | Oxford University Press |
| 2023 | The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence | David Waldstreicher | Biography | 8 | 1 | 2 | Unknown | Not yet sourced |
| 2025 | The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker | Amy Reading | Biography | 8 | 0 | 2 | Mariner Books | HarperCollins |
| 2015 | Fortune’s Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth | Terry Alford | Biography | 8 | 0 | 3 | Oxford University Press | Oxford University Press |
| 2015 | The Light of the World: A Memoir | Elizabeth Alexander | Memoir & Autobiography | 8 | 0 | 2 | Unknown | Not yet sourced |
| 2012 | Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece | Michael Gorra | Arts & Criticism | 8 | 0 | 2 | W. W. Norton | W. W. Norton & Company |
| 2010 | The Secret Lives Of Somerset Maugham: A Biography | Selina Hastings | Biography | 8 | 0 | 2 | Random House | Penguin Random House |
| 2007 | Ralph Ellison: A Biography | Arnold Rampersad | Biography | 8 | 0 | 2 | Knopf | Penguin Random House |
| 1994 | D.H. Lawrence: The Story of a Marriage | Brenda Maddox | Biography | 8 | 0 | 2 | Simon & Schuster | Simon & Schuster |
| 1984 | One Writer’s Beginnings | Eudora Welty | Memoir & Autobiography | 8 | 0 | 2 | Harvard University Press | Harvard University Press |
| 1979 | Bloomsbury: A House of Lions | Leon Edel | Biography | 8 | 0 | 2 | Hogarth | Penguin Random House |
| 1977 | Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860–1865 | Joseph Frank | Biography | 8 | 0 | 2 | Princeton University Press | Princeton University Press |
| 1976 | Lamy of Santa Fe | Paul Horgan | Biography | 8 | 0 | 2 | Wesleyan University Press | Wesleyan University Press |
| 2015 | 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear | James Shapiro | Biography | 6 | 1 | 2 | Faber & Faber | Faber & Faber |
| 2024 | The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise | Olivia Laing | Society & Culture | 6 | 0 | 2 | Knopf | Penguin Random House |
| 2021 | Things I Have Withheld | Kei Miller | Race & Ethnicity | 6 | 0 | 2 | Canongate | Canongate Books |
| 2013 | Forty-One False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers | Janet Malcolm | Arts & Criticism | 6 | 0 | 2 | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | Macmillan |
| 2012 | A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman | Alice Kessler-Harris | Biography | 6 | 0 | 2 | Bloomsbury | Bloomsbury Publishing |
Showing 1-100 of 265 books
All awards · Topic: Literary Biography · Sorted by score · 265 books · filtered