All the King's Men

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.

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

Noel Polk is a professor of American Literature at the University of Southern Mississippi and he lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.