1910s
1920s
- 1920: no award given
- 1921: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
- 1922: Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
- 1923: One of Ours by Willa Cather
- 1924: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
- 1925: So Big by Edna Ferber
- 1926: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (declined prize)
- 1927: Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield
- 1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
- 1929: Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1930s
- 1930: Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge
- 1931: Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
- 1932: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
- 1933: The Store by Thomas Sigismund Stribling
- 1934: Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
- 1935: Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
- 1936: Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
- 1937: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- 1938: The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand
- 1939: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1940s
- 1940: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- 1941: no award given [2]
- 1942: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
- 1943: Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
- 1944: Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
- 1945: A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
- 1946: no award given
- 1947: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
- 1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
- 1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1950s
- 1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
- 1951: The Town by Conrad Richter
- 1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
- 1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- 1954: No award given
- 1955: A Fable by William Faulkner
- 1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
- 1957: No award given[3]
- 1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee
- 1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1960s
- 1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
1961:To Kill a Mockingbird byHarper Lee- 1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
- 1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner
- 1964: No award given
- 1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
- 1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
- 1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
- 1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
- 1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1970s
- 1970: The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
- 1971: No award given[4]
- 1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
- 1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
- 1974: No award given [5]
- 1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
- 1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
- 1977: No award given [6]
- 1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
- 1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1980s
Entries from this point on include the finalists listed after the winner for each year.- 1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
- 1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (posthumous win)
- 1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
1983:The Color Purple byAlice Walker- 1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy
- 1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
- 1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
- 1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
- 1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison
- 1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1990s
- 1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
- 1991: Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
- 1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
- 1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
1994:The Shipping News byE. Annie Proulx- 1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
- 1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford
- 1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
1998:American Pastoral byPhilip Roth1999:The Hours byMichael Cunningham
2000s
- 2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
- 2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
- 2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo
- 2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
- 2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
- 2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
2006:March byGeraldine Brooks2007:The Road byCormac McCarthy- 2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
- 2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
