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