[3] When the Foundation celebrated the 60th postwar awards in 2009, all but three of the 77 previous winners in fiction categories were in print.
[5] The award recognizes one book written by a U.S. citizen and published in the U.S. from December 1 to November 30.
From 1935 to 1941, there were six annual awards for general fiction and the "Bookseller Discovery" or "Most Original Book" was sometimes a novel.
[68] The National Book Awards for 1935 to 1940 annually recognized the "Most Distinguished Novel" (1935–1936) or "Favorite Fiction" (1937–1940).
There was only one National Book Award for 1941, the Bookseller Discovery, which recognized the novel Hold Autumn In Your Hand by George Perry;[155] then none until the 1950 revival in three categories including Fiction.
1935: Rachel Field, Time Out of Mind[156] 1936: Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind[157] 1937: A. J. Cronin, The Citadel[158] 1938: Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca[159] 1939: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath[160] 1940: Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley[161] 1936: Norah Lofts, I Met a Gypsy (short stories)[157] 1937: Lawrence Watkin, On Borrowed Time (novel)[159] 1938: see nonfiction 1939: Elgin Groseclose, Ararat (novel)[160] 1940: see nonfiction 1941: George Sessions Perry, Hold Autumn in Your Hand (novel)[155] 1935: Charles G. Finney, The Circus of Dr. Lao (novel)[157] 1936: see nonfiction 1937: see nonfiction 1938: see nonfiction 1939: Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun (novel)[160]