| Year | Laureates |
| 1920 | Knut Pedersen Hamsun |
| 1919 | Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler |
| 1918 | The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section |
| 1917 | Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan |
| 1916 | Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam |
| 1915 | Romain Rolland |
| 1914 | The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section |
| 1913 | Rabindranath Tagore |
| 1912 | Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann |
| 1911 | Count Maurice (Mooris) Polidore Marie Bernhard Maeterlinck |
| 1910 | Paul Johann Ludwig Heyse |
| 1909 | Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf |
| 1908 | Rudolf Christoph Eucken |
| 1907 | Rudyard Kipling |
| 1906 | Giosuè Carducci |
| 1905 | Henryk Sienkiewicz |
| 1904 | Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray y Eizaguirre |
| 1903 | Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson |
| 1902 | Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen |
| 1901 | Sully Prudhomme |
