| | 1918 His Family by Ernest Poole (Macmillan) |
| | 1919 The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington (Doubleday) |
| | 1920 (No Award) |
| | 1921 The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (Appleton) |
| | 1922 Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington (Doubleday) |
| | 1923 One of Ours by Willa Cather (Knopf) |
| | 1924 The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson (Harper) |
| | 1925 So Big by Edna Ferber (Doubleday) |
| | 1926 Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (Harcourt) |
| | 1927 Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield (Stokes) |
| | 1928 The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (Boni) |
| | 1929 Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin (Bobbs) |
| | 1930 Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge (Houghton) |
| | 1931 Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes (Houghton) |
| | 1932 The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (John Day) |
| | 1933 The Store by T. S. Stribling (Doubleday) |
| | 1934 Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller (Harper) |
| | 1935 Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson (Simon & Schuster) |
| | 1936 Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis (Harper) |
| | 1937 Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (Macmillan) |
| | 1938 The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand (Little) |
| | 1939 The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Scribner) |
| | 1940 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (Viking) |
| | 1941 (No Award) |
| | 1942 In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow (Harcourt) |
| | 1943 Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair (Viking) |
| | 1944 Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin (Harper) |
| | 1945 A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (Knopf) |
| | 1946 (No Award) |
| | 1947 All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (Harcourt) |
| | 1948 Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener (Macmillan) |
| | 1949 Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens (Harcourt) |
| | 1950 The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr. (Sloane) |
| | 1951 The Town by Conrad Richter (Knopf) |
| | 1952 The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk (Doubleday) |
| | 1953 The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (Scribner) |
| | 1954 (No Award) |
| | 1955 A Fable by William Faulkner (Random) |
| | 1956 Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor (World) |
| | 1957 (No Award) |
| | 1958 A Death In The Family by the late James Agee (a posthumous publication) (McDowell, Obolensky) |
| | 1959 The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor (Doubleday) |
| | 1960 Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (Doubleday) |
| | 1961 To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Lippincott) |
| | 1962 The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor (Little) |
| | 1963 The Reivers by William Faulkner (Random) |
| | 1964 (No Award) |
| | 1965 The Keepers Of The House by Shirley Ann Grau (Random) |
| | 1966 Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter (Harcourt) |
| | 1967 The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (Farrar) |
| | 1968 The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron (Random) |
| | 1969 House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (Harper) |
| | 1970 Collected Stories by Jean Stafford (Farrar) |
| | 1971 (No Award) |
| | 1972 Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (Doubleday) |
| | 1973 The Optimists Daughter by Eudora Welty (Random) |
| | 1974 (No Award) |
| | 1975 The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (McKay) |
| | 1976 Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow (Viking) |
| | 1977 (No Award) |
| | 1978 Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson (Atlantic Monthly Press) |
| | 1979 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (Knopf) |
| | 1980 The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer (Little, Brown) |
| | 1981 A Confederacy of Dunces by the late John Kennedy Toole (a posthumous publication) (Louisiana State U. Press) |
| | 1982 Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike (Knopf), the latest novel in a memorable sequence |
| | 1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Harcourt Brace) |
| | 1984 Ironweed by William Kennedy (Viking) |
| | 1985 Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie (Random House) |
| | 1986 Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Simon & Schuster) |
| | 1987 A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 1988 Beloved by Toni Morrison (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 1989 Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 1990 The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) |
| | 1991 Rabbit At Rest by John Updike (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 1992 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 1993 A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler (Henry Holt) |
| | 1994 The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (Charles Scribner's Sons) |
| | 1995 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (Viking) |
| | 1996 Independence Day by Richard Ford (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 1997 Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (Crown) |
| | 1998 American Pastoral by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin) |
| | 1999 The Hours by Michael Cunningham (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) |
| | 2000 Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin) |
| | 2001 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (Random House) |
| | 2002 Empire Falls by Richard Russo (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 2003 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) |
| | 2004 The Known World by Edward P. Jones (Amistad/ HarperCollins) |
| | 2005 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) |
| | 2006 March by Geraldine Brooks (Viking) |