Skip to content

Authors · NYT Hardcover Fiction

William Styron portraitWilliam Styron

Charting Sep 30, 1951 → May 11, 1980 · 115 weeks with chart power

Compare with other authors →
Image credits

Honours

Author of the Week

  • NYT Hardcover Fiction

    27 crowns

    19511980

    Longest reign 21 weeks (Nov 1967 – Mar 1968) · First crown Nov 1967

Peak Power
13.38%
week of Mar 24, 1968
Career Power
924
share-weeks
Crowns
27
weeks crowned Author of the Week
Peak Year
453
September 1967 – September 1968
Peak Five Years
453
August 1963 – September 1968
Top-five weeks
47
weeks ranked 1–5
Longevity
115
weeks with chart power
Dominance
14.53%
week of Nov 5, 1967
Comebacks
3
Jul 1960, after 8 quiet years · Oct 1967, after 7 quiet years · Jul 1979, after 11 quiet years

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

4 books · 924 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 Confessions of Nat Turner#144452.9
Sophie's Choice#147383.1
Set This House on Fire#81450.3
Lie Down in Darkness#71037.7

At their peak

1967 in books →

William Styron's best twelve months on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list ran from September 1967 to September 1968. The most powerful authors over those weeks:

  1. 1Leon Uris486
  2. 2William Styron453
  3. 3Arthur Hailey324
  4. 4Catherine Marshall302
  5. 5Gore Vidal286
  6. 6Fletcher Knebel284
  7. 7John Updike249
  8. 8Mary Stewart239
  9. 9Chaim Potok218
  10. 10Ira Levin177

Ranked by Era Power over the same weeks.

Their decades: the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s.