Prizes: Loser Take All

If Columbia University keeps plugging, it may soon make the Pulitzer Prizes more valuable in the losing than the winning. Last year, after the Pulitzer Advisory Board unanimously chose W. A. Swanberg's Citizen Hearst for the $500 biography award, Columbia's trustees vetoed the book—and sales spurted. Last week, after a two-man screening jury recommended Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for the drama award, the Advisory Board decided to omit the prize. But with a New York Drama Critics Award and five Tonys (Broadway's Oscars) already on its mantel, Virginia...