William Faulkner (1897–1962)
Author of The Sound and the Fury
About the Author
Born in an old Mississippi family, William Faulkner made his home in Oxford, seat of the University of Mississippi. After the fifth grade he went to school only off and on-lived, read, and wrote much as he pleased. In 1918, refusing to enlist with the "Yankees," he joined the Canadian Air Force, show more and was transferred to the British Royal Air Force. After the war he studied a little at the University, did house painting, worked as a night superintendent at a power plant, went to New Orleans and became a friend of Sherwood Anderson, then to Europe and back home to Oxford. By this time he had written two novels. The Sound and the Fury followed in 1929. Financial success came with Sanctuary in 1931, which he assisted in filming. Faulkner 's novels are intense in their character portrayals of disintegrating Southern aristocrats, poor whites, and African Americans. A complex stream-of-consciousness rhetoric often involves Faulkner in lengthy sentences of anguished power. Most of his tales are set in the mythical Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, and are characterized by the use of many recurring characters from families of different social levels spanning more than a century. His best subjects are the old, dying South and the newer materialistic South. As I Lay Dying (1930), is a grotesquely tragicomic story about a family of poor southern whites. With Absalom, Absalom! (1936); the difficult parts of his famous short novel "The Bear" (published in Go Down, Moses, 1942); and the allegorical A Fable (1954), a non-Yoknapatawpha novel set in France during World War I; Faulkner returned to an innovative and difficult style that most readers have trouble with. Yet, interspersed among such works are collections of easily read stories originally published in popular magazines. There seems to be a growing sentiment among critics that the Snopes trilogy-The Hamlet (1940), The Town (1957), and The Mansion (1959)-for the most part an example of Faulkner's "moderate" style, could well be among his most important works. Faulkner was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature "for his powerful and artistically independent contribution to the new American novel," but it would appear now that he also deserved to win that honor for his contribution to world literature. When reporting his death, the Boston Globe quoted Faulkner's having once told an interviewer: "Since man is mortal, the only immortality for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. That is the artist's way of scribbling "Kilroy was here" on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must some day pass." In addition to the Nobel Prize, Faulkner received the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1950, and in 1951 he was given the National Book Award for his Collected Stories Collected Stories. For his novel A Fable he received the National Book Award for the second time, as well as the Pulitzer Prize in 1955. The Reivers (1962) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1963. In 1957 and 1958, he was the University of Virginia's first writer-in-residence, and in January 1959 he accepted an appointment as consultant on contemporary literature to the Alderman Library of that university. Although Faulkner was not without honors in his lifetime and has received world recognition since then, it is surprising to learn that, when Malcolm Cowley edited The Portable Faulkner in 1946, he found that almost all of Faulkner's books were out of print. By arranging selections from the works to form a continuous chronicle, Cowley deserves much of the credit for making readers aware of the way in which Faulkner was creating a fictive world on a scale grander than that of any novelist since Balzac. William Faulkner died in Oxford, Mississippi, in 1962. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Disambiguation Notice:
This is not the same person as William Falkner (d. 1682), English theologian. Do not combine the two.
Image credit: Photo by Carl van Vechten
(LoC Prints and Photographs Division,
Van Vechten Collection)
(LoC Prints and Photographs Division,
Van Vechten Collection)
Series
Works by William Faulkner
Novels 1936-1940 : Absalom, Absalom! / The Unvanquished / If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem / The Hamlet (1990) 589 copies
Novels 1942-1954 : Go Down, Moses / Intruder in the Dust / Requiem for a Nun / A Fable (1994) — Author — 470 copies
Novels 1926-1929 : Soldiers' Pay / Mosquitoes / Flags in the Dust / The Sound and the Fury (2006) 399 copies
Faulkner in the university : class conferences at the University of Virginia, 1957-1958 (1959) 79 copies
Works of William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury / Sanctuary / Light in August / As I Lay Dying (1956) 53 copies
William Faulkner: Stories (LOA #375): Knight's Gambit / Collected Stories / Big Woods / Other Works (Library of… (1940) 37 copies
Dry September 23 copies
A Fable: William Faulkner Manuscripts 20, Volume I: Miscellaneous Manuscript & Typescript Pages, Part 1 (1987) 12 copies
Czerwone liście : opowiadania 11 copies
William Faulkner Novels: 1936-1940 8 copies
Yoknapatawpha vanaaeg. jutustused / 1 {Yoknapatawpha Olden Time: Tales} — Author — 8 copies
Lo! 8 copies
Obras escogidas: Mientras agonizo / Pylon / Los invictos / El Villorío / Desciende,Moises! (1962) 8 copies
Yoknapatawpha uusaeg. jutustused / 2 {Yoknapatawpha Modern Times: Tales} — Author — 6 copies
Shimgles for the Lord 5 copies
Obras escogidas 5 copies
Red Leaves {story} — Author — 5 copies
The Saint Magazine Reader 4 copies
A Justice 4 copies
The Modern Library 4 copies
Hell Creek Crossing 4 copies
William Faulkner Manuscripts 22, Volumes I and II: The Mansion: The Early Typescript, Parts 1 and 2 3 copies
Septembertørke og andre noveller 3 copies
世界文学全集 : カラー版. 第50巻 (フォークナー). 3 copies
Honor 3 copies
Stary 3 copies
Kirjailijan työ : Saul Bellow, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Boris Pasternak, Kurt Vonnegut (1985) 3 copies
Best-in-Books: Grand Hotel / Voice of Bugle Ann / Life with Father / Mutiny on the Bounty / Postman Always Rings Twice (1962) — Contributor — 3 copies
Father Abraham Tree: William Faulkner Manuscripts II: Holograph Manuscript and Typescripts; and, The Wishing Tree:… (1987) 3 copies
A Bear Hunt 3 copies
Centaur in Brass 3 copies
That Will Be Fine 3 copies
A Courtship 3 copies
The Broach 3 copies
Elly 3 copies
Mule in the Yard 3 copies
Faulkner 2 copies
Light in August / The Mansion 2 copies
The Hill 2 copies
Works of William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury / Sanctuary / Light in August / As I Lay Dying (1929) 2 copies
Correspondance Malcolm Cowley-William Faulkner.Lettres et souvenirs de 1944 à 1962 commentés par M.Cowley traduit de… (1970) 2 copies
Faulkner William (William Falkner) 2 copies
The Sound and the Fury 2 copies
Carcassonne — Author — 2 copies
Divorce in Naples 2 copies
Mistral 2 copies
The Leg 2 copies
There Was a Queen 2 copies
Golden Land 2 copies
The Tall Men 2 copies
Beyond 2 copies
I negri e gli indiani 2 copies
Fox Hunt 2 copies
Victory 2 copies
Death Drag 2 copies
Hajnali hajtóvadászat : elbeszélések 2 copies
Tomorrow 2 copies
Shall Not Perish 2 copies
I fantasmi di Rowan Oak. Storie di sogno e di paura scritte e raccontate da William Faulkner (2005) 2 copies
Crevasse 2 copies
Salmagundi 2 copies
Artist at Home 2 copies
Requiem pour une nonne ("Requiem for a nun"), traduit de l'américain par M. E. Coindreau. Préface… 1 copy
Rare William Faulkner Absalom Absalom! Franklin Library Limited Leather 1978 [Hardcover] unknown 1 copy
ha-Ḳol ṿeha-zaʻam 1 copy
New Orlean Sketches 1 copy
La Pallida Zilphia Gant 1 copy
Faulkner's University Pieces 1 copy
Opere 1 copy
Le opere 1 copy
Smásögur 1 copy
Η Βουή Και Η Αντάρα 1 copy
Φως στον Αύγουστο 1 copy
Light in August pb 1 copy
the Man and the Artist (pb) 1 copy
By William Faulkner The Sound And the Fury (Pmc) (Modern Classics) (New impression) [Paperback] 1 copy
LIGHT IN AUGUST Easton Press 1 copy
The Reivers...a Reminiscence 1 copy
Az öreg [kisregény] 1 copy
Selected Short Works of William Faulkner — Author — 1 copy
Svetiliste 1 copy
O Aksam Gunesi 1 copy
The Mansion: Typescript Setting Copy & Miscellaneous Material (William Faulkner Manuscripts 22, Volumes III & IV) (1991) 1 copy
A William Faulkner Reader 1 copy
Obras Completas II 1 copy
Obras Completas III 1 copy
Αβεσσαλώμ Αβεσσαλώμ 1 copy
Obras escogidas I 1 copy
ABSALÓN ABSALÓN 1 copy
Copacul Dorintelor 1 copy
DUMAN 1 copy
Sartoris / The Bear / Intruder in the Dust — Author — 1 copy
TYMI 1 copy
ΟΙ ΚΛΕΦΤΕΣ 1 copy
Dosegimde Olurken - Ayi 1 copy
Absalom, Absalom! / Intruder in the Dust / Light in August / The Reivers / The Sound and the Fury 1 copy
Lekeli Gunler 1 copy
Hand Upon the Waters 1 copy
Folklore of the Air 1 copy
A Point of Law 1 copy
The Waifs 1 copy
Três Histórias de Guerra 1 copy
Svetloba v avgustu 1 copy
Humphrey Bogart Classics: Volume 2 — Writer — 1 copy
Собрание рассказов 1 copy
With Caution and Dispatch 1 copy
Семь рассказов 1 copy
An Error in Chemistry 1 copy
Elmer; and, "A Portrait of Elmer": William Faulker Manuscripts I: The Typescripts, Manuscripts, and Miscellaneous Pages (1987) 1 copy
The Faulkner Reader: The Sound and Fury Complete, selections from other novels, 3 novellas, nine stories, etc (1954) 1 copy
Faulkner - Premio Nobel 1949 1 copy
Erzählungen II 1 copy
Extrait - L'Intrus 1 copy
Neodpočívej v pokoji 1 copy
Collected Storeies Vol. II 1 copy
The Story of My Life 1 copy
Novelas escogidas, I (Mientras agonizo; Pylon, Los invictos; El villorrio; ¿Desciende, Moisés?) 1 copy
My Grandmother Millard 1 copy
The Evening Sun 1 copy
Kırmızı Yapraklar 1 copy
Requiem for a Nun: William Faulkner Manuscripts 19, Volume III: Typescript Setting Copy (1987) 1 copy
William Faulkner Manuscripts 19, Volumes I, II, and III: Requiem for a Nun: Preliminary Holograph and Typescript… (1987) 1 copy
Obras escogidas TOMO II: Una fabula-El ruido y la furia-Santuario-Absalom,absalom-novelas cortas (1960) 1 copy
Amerikaanse verhalen — Contributor — 1 copy
Larmen Og Vreden 1 copy
Monk [short story] 1 copy
Obras Completas III 1 copy
Absalom, Absalom! Griff in den Staub. Der Bär. Die Spitzbuben. Eine Legende. Sartoris. Dürrer September. Als… (1963) 1 copy
A Cosmos of My Own 1 copy
The Road to Glory 1 copy
Country Lawyer 1 copy
Rose of Lebanon 1 copy
Aşk ve Ölüm 1 copy
Duman 1 copy
The Hound 1 copy
"Shall Not Perish" 1 copy
Konjicki gambit 1 copy
Collected Stories Volume I 1 copy
Obras Completas VI 1 copy
DIVLJE PALME - STARAC 1 copy
“The Tall Men” 1 copy
"A Bear Hunt" 1 copy
"Hair" 1 copy
Smasogur 1 copy
Pylon: William Faulkner Manuscripts 12: Typescript Setting Copy and Miscellaneous Holograph Pages (1987) 1 copy
Snobovi 1 copy
Descends, Moise 1 copy
Santuario - Luce d' Agosto 1 copy
නිරා ලය 1 copy
Khi tôi nằm chết 1 copy
Pennsylvania Station 1 copy
Rare -SELECTED LETTERS OF WILLIAM FAULKNER First ed! Deluxe Leather! & Companion Guide (1976) 1 copy
کتاب صوتی گور به گور 1 copy
البعوض 1 copy
Zstąp, Mojżeszu 1 copy
2003 1 copy
This earth : a poem 1 copy
TRE RÖVARE 1 copy
Pobertové : reminiscence 1 copy
Byn roman 1 copy
Fumo 1 copy
Zascianek 1 copy
O Homem e o Rio Livro 1 1 copy
Associated Works
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 929 copies
Great Detectives: A Century of the Best Mysteries from England and America (1984) — Contributor — 360 copies
The American Short Story: A Collection of the Best Known and Most Memorable Stories by the Great American Authors (1994) — Contributor — 324 copies
First Fiction: An Anthology of the First Published Stories by Famous Writers (1994) — Contributor — 183 copies
The Graphic Canon, Vol. 3: From Heart of Darkness to Hemingway to Infinite Jest (2013) — Contributor — 148 copies
Growing Up in the South: An Anthology of Modern Southern Literature (1991) — Contributor — 142 copies
An American Album: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Harper's Magazine (2000) — Contributor — 133 copies
Adaptations: From Short Story to Big Screen: 35 Great Stories That Have Inspired Great Films (2005) — Contributor — 124 copies
The Sophisticated Cat: A Gathering of Stories, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings About Cats (1992) — Contributor — 100 copies
Gentlemen, Scholars and Scoundrels: A Treasury of the Best of Harper's Magazine from 1850 to the Present (1959) — Contributor — 56 copies
The world of law; a treasury of great writing about and in the law, short stories, plays, essays, accounts, letters,… (1960) — Contributor — 54 copies
Best of The Oxford American: Ten Years from the Southern Magazine of Good Writing {anthology} (2002) — Contributor — 43 copies
The Edge of the Chair: A Superlative Collection, Some Fact, Some Fiction, All Suspense (1967) — Contributor — 42 copies
Out of the Best Books: An Anthology of Literature, Vol. 1: The Individual and Human Values (1964) — Contributor — 40 copies
The Greatest War Stories Ever Told: Twenty-Four Incredible War Tales (2001) — Contributor — 29 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1932 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1932) — Contributor — 13 copies
Fifty Years of the American Short Story from the O. Henry Awards 1919-1970 (1970) — Contributor — 13 copies
Yoknapatawpha, Images and Voices: A Photographic Study of Faulkner's County (2009) — Contributor — 10 copies
Amerikanische Kurzgeschichten (American Short Stories) (English and German Edition) (1956) — Contributor — 10 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1941 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1941) — Contributor — 10 copies
Voor en na middernacht : vierendertig beroemde spook- en griezelverhalen (1949) — Contributor — 7 copies
De mooiste verhalen van James Baldwin, John Berger, Jorge Luis Borges, Jane Bowles, Joseph Brodsky, Charles Bukowski,… (1990) — Contributor — 7 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1931 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1931) — Contributor — 7 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1940 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1940) — Contributor — 6 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1937 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1937) — Contributor — 6 copies
Contemporary Short Stories: Representative Selections, Volume 3 — Contributor — 6 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1936 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1936) — Contributor — 4 copies
Best Crime Stories — Contributor — 3 copies
Story in America, 1933-1934: Thirty-Four Selections from the American Issues of "Story," the Magazine Devoted Solely to… (1934) — Contributor — 3 copies
Modern Short Stories — Contributor — 3 copies
Fifty Years of the American Short Story: from the O. Henry Awards 1919-1970 (Volume I) (1970) — Contributor — 3 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1935 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1935) — Contributor — 2 copies
Reader's Digest Condensed Books: The Desperate Hours • The Goat Boy • My Brother's Keeper • Two Soldiers • The… (1956) 2 copies
Modern Short Stories — Contributor — 2 copies
Los premios Nobel de literatura. En la ciudad / Elias Portolu / El Maestro — Contributor — 1 copy
Um pilar de ferro - A travessia de Hell Creek - O advogado do diabo - Flor do mar (1965) — Contributor — 1 copy
Nobel Prize Library Faulkner, O'Neill, Steinbeck — Contributor — 1 copy
American Short Stories: Anthology [Mi-Sefarim Amerikai'im: Antologiyah shel Ha-Sipur Ha-Ketsar Ha-Amerkai] — Contributor — 1 copy
Mine Verdener / To Soldater / Digby / Pashaen på Gudindeøen / Det Store X — Contributor — 1 copy
The Saturday Evening Post Stories 1957 — Contributor — 1 copy
The New York quarterly : NYQ : Number 36, Summer 1988 — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Faulkner, William
- Legal name
- Faulkner, William Cuthbert
- Other names
- Faulkner, Will
- Birthdate
- 1897-09-25
- Date of death
- 1962-07-06
- Burial location
- St. Peter's Cemetery, Oxford, Mississippi, USA
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New Albany, Mississippi, USA
- Place of death
- Byhalia, Mississippi, USA
- Cause of death
- suffered a serious injury in a fall from his horse, which led to thrombosis
- Places of residence
- Oxford, Mississippi, USA
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA - Education
- University of Mississippi
- Occupations
- novelist
short story writer
poet
literary critic
essayist
screenwriter (show all 14)
playwright
bank clerk
postmaster
roof painter
carpenter
deckhand
coal shoveler
pilot - Relationships
- Faulkner, John (brother)
Falkner, Murry C. (brother)
Faulkner, Jim (nephew)
Falkner, William Clark (great-grandfather)
Percy, William Alexander (friend)
Anderson, Sherwood (friend) (show all 9)
West, Nathanael (friend)
Franklin, Malcolm A. (stepson)
Wells, Dean Faulkner (niece) - Organizations
- British Armed Forces
American Academy of Arts and Letters
Sigma Alpha Epsilon
University of Mississippi (postmaster)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (screenwriter)
Warner Brothers (screenwriter) (show all 8)
University of Virginia (writer-in-residence)
National Institute of Arts and Letters - Awards and honors
- Nobel Prize (Literature, 1949)
National Institute of Arts and Letters (1939)
American Academy of Arts and Letters (1948)
William Dean Howells Medal (1950)
Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur (1951)
Silver Medal of the Greek Academy (1957) (show all 8)
National Institute of Arts and Letters Gold Medal (1962)
Created the PEN/Faulkner Award - Short biography
- William Cuthbert Faulkner (September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner wrote novels, short stories, screenplays, poetry, essays, and a play. He is primarily known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life.
Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers in American literature generally and Southern literature specifically. Though his work was published as early as 1919 and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner's renown reached its peak upon the publication of Malcolm Cowley's The Portable Faulkner and his 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the only Mississippi-born Nobel winner. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and his last novel The Reivers (1962), each won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked his 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century; also on the list were As I Lay Dying (1930) and Light in August (1932). Absalom, Absalom! (1936) appears on similar lists. - Disambiguation notice
- This is not the same person as William Falkner (d. 1682), English theologian. Do not combine the two.
Members
Discussions
Folio Society Devotees: Sound and Fury in Book talk (October 2023)
Folio Society Devotees: Sound and Fury in Folio Society Devotees (October 2023)
The Snopes Trilogy, Volume III, The Mansion in Club Read 2023 (September 2023)
The Snopes Trilogy, Volume II, The Town in Club Read 2023 (August 2023)
The Snopes Trilogy Group Read: The Hamlet in Club Read 2023 (July 2023)
The Sound and the Fury LE in Folio Society Devotees (May 2021)
Faulkner and james Branch Cabell in William Faulkner and his Literary Kin (October 2020)
As I Lay Dying: The More You Know. in William Faulkner and his Literary Kin (November 2018)
William Faulkner- American Author Challenge in 75 Books Challenge for 2014 (March 2014)
LIGHT IN AUGUST - Group Read Discussion Thread in 75 Books Challenge for 2013 (August 2013)
The Sound and the Fury GROUP READ in 2013 Category Challenge (April 2013)
Reviews
Lists
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To read (1)
Read These Too (1)
Modernism (3)
Unread books (4)
1930s (6)
Southern Fiction (6)
Five star books (4)
Favourite Books (4)
AP Lit (4)
Carole's List (2)
Best First Lines (2)
Folio Society (2)
Reiny (2)
"We" narration (2)
My TBR (2)
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 440
- Also by
- 187
- Members
- 87,938
- Popularity
- #119
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 1,097
- ISBNs
- 1,434
- Languages
- 34
- Favorited
- 496
OPD: 1930
format: 182-page hardcover (no ISBN or publication date, but maybe 1960's?)
acquired: 2006 read: May 25-27 time reading: 6:42, 2.2 mpp
rating: 5
genre/style: Classic theme: Faulkner
locations: 1920’s Mississippi
about the author: 1897-1962. American Noble Laureate who was born in New Albany, MS, and lived most of his life in Oxford, MS.
I cannot capture or adequately post on this one. It's bigger than my ability to express. It's just doing a whole lot of stuff, from many different approaches, and it all works. I was absorbed. I was reading at a crawl, slowly wading through words that were demanding to me that I slow down and wade through them, and experience them, think of their sound. Meanwhile they were doing other things. This book isn't exactly a wow, but it has a presence, once you begin, that fills a lot of your mind, that hangs out there as some big thing. And I can't tell you what that big thing even is. But I have something like an awe there. In some non-emotional but deep way I find myself very attached to this.
It's all voices, in 1 to 4 or so page chapters titled by the speaker/thinker. Vardaman tells us, "My Mother is a fish." That's a whole capture. Here's his mother, Addie, speaking about her husband, Anse:
The story is about the death of Addie Bundren on her husband's poor farm isolated in rural Mississippi. She has made her husband promise to take her body to the town she came from, Jefferson, MS, about 40 miles away. They don't have a car, so this would by animal cart. When she dies, the weather breaks and the local river swells and tears down all the old bridges. But Anse is a weird guy, and a promise is a promise. He takes his three sons, his daughter, Dewey Dell, and a friend to help transport her. So, in a sense the book has two parts, the anticipation of Addie's death, where she looks out a window to watch her son make her coffin, the sounds of his sawing and hammering running through the text, and then a journey, their own odyssey.
But, it's the voices. That's everything here. From the opening line. They are just so distinct, that as a reader, my mind melded with their southern rural slang. Somehow, they take on their own reality, and they are the book. It's a kind of stream of conscious, with a repetition that should be irritating, but works, giving us a variety minds, sometimes compromised, sometimes religious, sometimes so coldly or even silently practical. It's almost doesn't matter what they say (or how funny it might be. The humor is superb). They have a rhythm and experience, that, itself, lingers.
This is a non-overrated wonderful classic. Recommended to the Faulkner curious.
2024
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