Letters of Note posts Sinclair Lewis’ rejection of the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel.

Lewis argues that honors such as the Pulitzer serve the committees who award them rather than receivers of the award; these committees become the enforcers of taste and threaten to decrease the creativity of future authors:

“I invite other writers to consider the fact that by accepting the prizes and approval of these vague institutions we are admitting their authority, publicly confirming them as the final judges of literary excellence, and I inquire whether any prize is worth that subservience.”