At Collecting Children’s Books, Peter D. Sieruta has delivered a very extensive and interesting commentary on the dilemma of awards in an essay title “A Year Without a Newbery?”  The issue is whether the significance of awards gets watered down in years when the talent pool is very shallow.  He opens the essay by talking about Pulitzer, Tarkington, and The Magnificent Ambersons:

Back in 1917, a committee convened to select the very first Pulitzer prize winning novel.

The members of this committe would later report, “Of the five books submitted in competition, all but one seem to us unworthy of consideration for the prize. We are unanimously of the opinion, however, that the merits of this book, though considerable, are no greater than that of several other novels, which though not included in the formal applications, have been taken into consideration by us in arriving at a final verdict. We recommend that the award be withheld this year.”

The inaugural Pulitzer novel was finally named the following year (HIS FAMILY by Ernest Poole), but in 1919 the committee again recommended no prize — until a last-minute decision was made to honor Booth Tarkington’s THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. In 1920 the prize was once again withheld.

This is interesting backstory material.  I’m not sure what Sieruta’s source is for this information, but I’ve seen no reference to it in Tarkington biographies.  I’m planning an inquiry of Sieruta to document the source.