William Faulkner Reads from As I Lay Dying and Others

by William Faulkner

"Rendered by the author with a rich deep-south accent that gives uncanny realism to each of the selections undertaken. His reading pace is neither slow nor fast and he conjures up many vivid, picturesque images for his listening audience . . . Strongly recommended." — Roslyn News This historic recording contains the first readings by William Faulkner of his work. One hearing is hardly enough. As in his books, penetration deepens with each new experience of the work. Yield to Faulkner's serenity, the deep-south way with words, the unaffected ease with which he drifts into Yoknapatawpha dialect. A recording ore important than this is not likely to be made soon. This audio reproduces the full sound spectrum of his historic recordings; it has been remastered using contemporary digital equipment. Side 1: The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, As I Lay Dying (excerpts), Side 2: A Fable (excerpt), The Old Man (excerpt).

Audio Cassette

First published December 1, 1989

About the author

William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer. He is best known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in for Lafayette County where he spent most of his life. A Nobel laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature and often is considered the greatest writer of Southern literature.
Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, and raised in Oxford, Mississippi. During World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel Soldiers' Pay (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote Sartoris (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published The Sound and the Fury. The following year, he wrote As I Lay Dying. Later that decade, he wrote Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! and The Wild Palms. He also worked as a screenwriter, contributing to Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, adapted from Raymond Chandler's novel. The former film, adapted from Ernest Hemingway's novel, is the only film with contributions by two Nobel laureates.
Faulkner's reputation grew following publication of Malcolm Cowley's The Portable Faulkner, and he was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his powerful and unique contribution to the modern American novel." He is the only Mississippi-born Nobel laureate. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Faulkner died from a heart attack on July 6, 1962, following a fall from his horse the month before. Ralph Ellison called him "the greatest artist the South has produced".