The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.
- 1917: Julia Ward Howe by Laura E. Richards and Maude Howe Elliott , assisted by Florence Howe Hall
- 1918: Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed by William Cabell Bruce
- 1919: The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
- 1920: The Life of John Marshall, 4 vols. by Albert J. Beveridge
- 1921: The Americanization of Edward Bok by Edward Bok
- 1922: A Daughter of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland
- 1923: The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page by Burton J. Hendrick
- 1924: From Immigrant to Inventor by Michael Idvorsky Pupin
- 1925: Barrett Wendell and His Letters by M. A. Dewolfe Howe
- 1926: The Life of Sir William Osler, 2 vols. by Harvey Cushing
- 1927: Whitman by Emory Holloway
- 1928: The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas by Charles Edward Russell
- 1929: The Training of an American: The Earlier Life and Letters of Walter H. Page by Burton J. Hendrick
- 1930: The Raven by Marquis James
- 1931: Charles W. Eliot by Henry James
- 1932: Theodore Roosevelt by Henry F. Pringle
- 1933: Grover Cleveland by Allan Nevins
- 1934: John Hay by Tyler Dennett
- 1935: R. E. Lee by Douglas S. Freeman
- 1936: The Thought and Character of William James by Ralph Barton Perry
- 1937: Hamilton Fish by Allan Nevins
- 1938: Andrew Jackson, 2 vols. by Marquis James
- 1938: Pedlar's Progress by Odell Shepard
- 1939: Benjamin Franklin by Carl Van Doren
- 1940: Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters. Vols. VII and VIII by Ray Stannard Baker
- 1941: Jonathan Edward by Ola Elizabeth Winslow
- 1942: Crusader in Crinoline by Forrest Wilson
- 1943: Admiral of the Ocean Sea by Samuel Eliot Morison
- 1944: The American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F B. Morse by Carleton Mabee
- 1945: George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel by Russell Blaine Nye
- 1946: Son of the Wilderness by Linnie Marsh Wolfe
- 1947: The Autobiography of William Allen White by William Allen White
- 1948: Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow by Margaret Clapp
- 1949: Roosevelt and Hopkins by Robert E. Sherwood
- 1950: John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy by Samuel Flagg Bemis
- 1951: John C. Calhoun: American Portrait by Margaret Louise Coit
- 1952: Charles Evans Hughes by Merlo J. Pusey
- 1953: Edmund Pendleton 1721-1803 by David J. Mays
- 1954: The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles A. Lindbergh
- 1955: The Taft Story by William S. White
- 1956: Benjamin Henry Latrobe by Talbot Faulkner Hamlin
- 1957: Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy
- 1958: George Washington, Volumes I-VI by Douglas Southall Freeman, and Volume VII, written by John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth after Dr. Freeman's death in 1953
- 1959: Woodrow Wilson, American Prophet by Arthur Walworth
- 1960: John Paul Jones by Samuel Eliot Morison
- 1961: Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War by David Donald
- 1962: no award given
- 1963: Henry James by Leon Edel
- 1964: John Keats by Walter Jackson Bate
- 1965: Henry Adams, 3 vols., by Ernest Samuels
- 1966: A Thousand Days by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
- 1967: Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain by Justin Kaplan
- 1968: Memoirs by George Frost Kennan
- 1969: The Man From New York: John Quinn and His Friends by Benjamin Lawrence Reid
- 1970: Huey Long by Thomas Harry Williams
- 1971: Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915 - 1938 by Lawrence Thompson
- 1972: Eleanor and Franklin by Joseph P. Lash
- 1973: Luce and His Empire by W. A. Swanberg
- 1974: O'Neill, Son and Artist by Louis Sheaffer
- 1975: The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro
- 1976: Edith Wharton: A Biography by R. W. B. Lewis
- 1977: A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T E. Lawrence by John E. Mack
- 1978: Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate
- 1979: Days of Sorrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews by Leonard Baker
- 1980: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
- 1981: Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie
- 1982: Grant: A Biography by William S. McFeely
- 1983: Growing Up by Russell Baker
- 1984: Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901-1915 by Louis R. Harlan
- 1985: The Life and Times of Cotton Mather by Kenneth Silverman
- 1986: Louise Bogan: A Portrait by Elizabeth Frank
- 1987: Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J. Garrow
- 1988: Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe by David Herbert Donald
- 1989: Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann
- 1990: Machiavelli in Hell by Sebastian de Grazia
- 1991: Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
- 1992: Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller Jr. by Lewis B. Puller
- 1993: Truman by David McCullough
- 1994: W.E.B. Dubois : Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 by David Levering Lewis
- 1995: Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life by Joan D. Hedrick
- 1996: God: A Biography by Jack Miles
- 1997: Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
- 1998: Personal History by Katharine Graham
- 1999: Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg
- 2000: Vera, Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov by Stacy Schiff
- 2001: W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and The American Century, 1919-1963 by David Levering Lewis
- 2002: John Adams by David McCullough
- 2003: Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro
- 2004: Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (ISBN 0393051447) by William Taubman
