Triple Pulitzer Prize winner and Rhodes Scholar Robert Penn Warren was selected as the United States' first poet laureate (1986-88). He was also a gifted teacher, novelist, and critic. All the King's Men (1946) is perhaps his most famous work. It tells the story of a Southern politician corrupted by power. Born in Kentucky, the writer often set his works in the South, focusing on themes of Southern history. He received the National Medal for Literature in 1970 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.