1919 -- The Magnificent Amberson's, Tarkington

Booth Tarkington's first Pulitzer Prize winning novel features an acceptable plot but largely unsympathetic characters.

Interesting are Tarkington's observations of urbanization. He is clearly against the sprawl and the industrialization that turns everything sooty, yet his heros are industrialists who seem right out of the pages of The Lorax.

The treatment of black people in the book is dated (as in so many early Pulitzers). And Georgie's whinning gets pretty annoying. The 2002 movie interpreted the relationship between George and his mother in a really creepy way that, upon review, was totally supported by the book. But it still grossed me out...