All the King's Men

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE

“All the King’s Men, the best American political novel ever written, is generally read as a cautionary tale about how power poisons slowly, like arsenic, or cynicism. But it’s also a fable about history, and why, like poetry, it’s so hard to write it fast." -Jill Lepore, The New Yorker

The fully restored original text of the classic, ever-relevant story of a backcountry lawyer whose idealism is overcome by his lust for power in a story of moral complexity—American literature's definitive political novel.

All the King's Men traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Stark, a fictional Southern politician who resembles the real-life Huey Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his career as an idealistic man of the people, but he soon becomes corrupted by success and the lust for power, a gripping tale of political corruption.

Now Warren's masterpiece has been fully restored and reintroduced by literary scholar Noel Polk, textual editor of the works of William Faulkner. Polk presents the novel as it was originally written, revealing even greater energy, excitement, and complexity.

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) won three Pulitzer Prizes, the National Book Award, the National Medal for Literature, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1986 he was named the country’s first poet laureate.