Snow's first novel was a whodunit, "Death under Sail" (1932). In 1975 he wrote a biography of Anthony Trollope. But he is better known as the author of a sequence of novels entitled "Strangers and Brothers" in which he depicts intellectuals in academic and government settings in the modern era. The best-known of the sequence is "The Masters". It deals with the internal politics of a Cambridge college as it prepares to elect a new master. Having all the appeal of an insider's view, the novel depicts concerns other than the strictly academic that influence the decisions of supposedly objective scholars. "The Masters" and "The New Men" were jointly awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1954. "Corridors of Power" added a phrase to the language of the day. In 1974, Snow's novel "In Their Wisdom" was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.