Emory Holloway's Whitman: An Interpretation in Narrative (1926) was the first biography of a major literary figure to win a Pulitzer Prize. The initial critical response to the publication recognized the extent to which it went beyond the mere chronicling of a life. Herbert S. German, reviewing the book for the New York Times Book Review (10 October 1926), found that it contained "a sound study and deep cogitation ... an excellent picture of the American mind in an era when that mind was forming itself into some sort of coherence."

Rufus Emory Holloway was born on 16 March 1885 in Marshall, Missouri, to Rufus Austin Holloway, a clergyman, and Ella Dent Holloway. Holloway received his A.B. from Hendrix College in 1906 and taught high school in Amity, Arkansas, for two years. He then chaired the English department at Scarritt-Morrisville College until 1911. After receiving his M.A. from the University of Texas in 1912, he...