All the King's Men

"A fully restored American political classic. . . . Now we can read it as it was written." --Chicago Tribune

Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize, All the King's Men is one of the most famous and widely read works in American literature, and as relevant today as it was fifty years ago. Now it 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, complexity, and subtlety of character in this landmark of letters.

"[Polk] should be commended for this restored edition of Warren's great novel. . . . Deeply imagined, beautifully written, [All the King's Men] is both a reckoning with the deepest forces of life and an edge-of-your seat page-turner."--The Raleigh News and Observer

"To read [All the King's Men] in this new edition is to be struck again by its raw power, its urgency and relevance."--New Orleans Times-Picayune

"The publication of a new, corrected edition of All the King's Men is welcome news for all who care about American literature." — Joseph Blotner, author of Robert Penn Warren: A Biography

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989), America's first Poet Laureate, won three Pulitzer Prizes and virtually every other major award given to U.S. writers.

Noel Polk is a professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi. He lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize, All the King's Men is one of the most famous and widely read works in American fiction. It traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Talos, a fictional Southern politician who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Talos begins his career as an idealistic man of the people, but he soon becomes corrupted by success and caught in a lust for power. All the King's Men is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago.

Robert Penn Warren's masterpiece has been restored by literary scholar Noel Polk, whose work on the texts of William Faulkner has proved so important to American literature. Polk presents the novel as it was originally written, revealing even greater complexity and subtlety of character. All the King's Men is a landmark in letters.