Robert Penn Warren books

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Non-Fiction

Robert Penn Warren Letters Reading Order

Standalone Novels

U.S. Landmark Non-Fiction Reading Order

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) was one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century. He is best known for his novel All the King’s Men, a story of political corruption in the American South that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. He also won two Pulitzer Prizes for poetry and was named the first U.S. Poet Laureate in 1986. His career spanned six decades, and he published novels, poetry, criticism, and non-fiction.

Warren was a leading figure in the Southern literary tradition and a founding member of the New Critics, a school of literary theory that emphasized close reading of texts. His non-fiction ranged from studies of race in America (Segregation, Who Speaks for the Negro?) to literary criticism and biography. His collected poems and selected letters have been published in multiple volumes since his death.