All the King’s Men

Robert Penn Warren's 1946 novel follows Willie Stark, an idealistic but underhanded populist who rises to the governorship of a Deep South state in the Depression years, a figure inspired by the Louisiana politician Huey P. Long. The narrator, Jack Burden, is a political reporter who becomes Stark's right-hand man, and the course of the governor's career is woven together with Burden's own life and reflections. The novel grew out of Proud Flesh, a verse play Warren began in 1936, and takes its title from the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. It won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize and was filmed in 1949 and 2006.

Connect Ventures founder Bill Earner named it among his favorite novels.