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Authors · NYT Hardcover Fiction

John Hersey portraitJohn Hersey

Charting Mar 5, 1944May 21, 1967 · 124 weeks with chart power

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Honours

Author of the Week

  • NYT Hardcover Fiction

    5 crowns

    19441967

    Longest reign 5 weeks (Mar–Apr 1950) · First crown Mar 1950

Peak Power
11.44%
week of Jul 23, 1950
Career Power
1,032
share-weeks
Crowns
5
weeks crowned Author of the Week
Peak Year
352
November 1949 – October 1950
Peak Five Years
361
January 1956 – January 1961
Top-five weeks
77
weeks ranked 1–5
Longevity
124
weeks with chart power
Dominance
14.53%
week of Mar 26, 1950
Comebacks
3
Apr 1950, after 5 quiet years · Aug 1956, after 6 quiet years · Nov 1959

Ranked by weekly Power Share, part of the ChartReign Power model — not the list's own positions. How it works →

Exponentially smoothed share of the week's total power (the primary metric).

Titles on the NYT Hardcover Fiction

6 books · 1,032 share-weeks of Career Power

Power contributed is what each book earned this author: their weekly Power Share, split across their books (a featured credit takes its reduced share). Book Power is the book's own figure, the same for every author on it. Bar length compares books within this list.

TitlePeakWeeksPower
The Wall#134351.5
A Bell for Adano#228289.3
The War Lover#222166.8
A Single Pebble#423152.9
The Child Buyer#81141.0
Under the Eye of the Storm#7630.4

At their peak

1949 in books

John Hersey's best twelve months on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list ran from November 1949 to October 1950. The most powerful authors over those weeks:

  1. 1Mika Waltari511
  2. 2Henry Morton Robinson419
  3. 3John Hersey352
  4. 4Gwen Bristow314
  5. 5Sholem Asch242
  6. 6John O'Hara204
  7. 7Daphne Du Maurier201
  8. 8Kathleen Winsor171
  9. 9Robert Penn Warren171
  10. 10Samuel Shellabarger151

Ranked by Era Power over the same weeks.

Their decades: the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s.