The Faulkner Reader

by William Faulkner

The world of William Faulkner, almost entirely concentrated within a country of his imagination, has become a commanding feature of the literary geography of America. In his novels and short stories he has portrayed the South in war and in peace, in reconstruction and regression.

This volume is arranged to offer a generous and representative cross-section of William Faulkner's work. Its wide range of selection encompass not only a full-length novel, three novellas and a substantial representation of his short stories, but also his famous Nobel Prize Address.

The volume is a selected harvest of three decades of Faulkner's writings, and with it is a summing-up, in the nature of a Foreword written especially for this book, in which William Faulkner for the first time declares his credo as a writer.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, Literature, American, Literary Fiction

682 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1954

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".

Reviews

[SoulSurvivor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read Faulkner ('The Sound and the Fury') in college; I hated his writing. I don't know why I might enjoy him 50 years later? I didn't. I wanted to read his novella 'The Wild Palms' but didn't care much for that either. It's not Faulknerphobia, I'm undaunted by difficult books; just don't like his.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

8 short stories, 6 excerpts from other works, "The Sound and the Fury" in its entirety, and the text of Faulkner's speech upon receiving the Nobel Prize.
Contains:
The Bear (Go Down, Moses)
Old Man (The Wild Palms)
Spotted Horses (The Hamlet)
A Rose For Emily
Barn Burning
Dry September
That Evening Sun
Turnabout
Shingles for the Lord
A Justice
Wash
An Odor of Verbena (The Unvanquished)
Percy Grimm (Light in August)
The Courthouse (Requiem for a Nun)

2015 - reread just the short stories. I enjoyed them all but "The Odor of Verbena" & "The Courthouse" seem to me to be most like his style in The Sound and the Fury (a warning or an enticement depending on the reader!).

[Eugenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bit too much Faulkner for me to take at one time. Having said that, there are some great stories in this book. I really loved "Wash" and some others. This book contains several short stories and novellas as well as the Sound and the Fury and the Bear (From Go Down Moses). I did not re-read the Bear but I did re-read Sound and the Fury. There is some brilliant writing and some fantastic sentences, but at one point I thought you could do a serious college English project just trying to diagram one of Faulkner's paragraph long sentences. I can't say I really enjoyed reading this book--at least not the whole time--but I am glad I finally tackled it.

[Daniel Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

The centerpiece of this reader is The Sound and the Fury. I got its gist on the first pass, since my earlier read of As I Lay Dying acclimated me to Faulkner’s multiple stream of consciousness narrations by quirky characters speaking in their own unique voices. In this work it is the three Compson brothers, the idiot Benji, followed by the suicidal Quentin and the stone-hearted Jason, and then Dilsey, the long-time black cook and housekeeper who in fact runs the entire household. Through them we know the promiscuous sister Cassie and the whining hypochondriacal matriarch Caroline and her worthless brother Maury, their incest producing a child Maury, later name-changed to Benjamin when his idiocy became manifest.
I had intended to make a second pass at TSATF but the first pass exhausted me. The reader’s primary reward is Faulkner’s magnificent grasp of the voices and humor of southern culture, as delivered by Jason, Dilsey, and the young black boy Luster.
Turning to the stories in this reader:
The Old Man, The Bear, and Spotted Horses I had previously read in a three-story collection. The first two exhausted me, like TSATF; Spotted Horses I liked, for the scheming and bargaining. Ditto Shingles for the Lord, which I loved. (I dare you to figure out country boy math without spending time on it.) Another favorite was A Rose for Emily. I liked all the rest of the stories that I haven’t mentioned. (Like is the wrong characterization for those which realistically portray racial violence.) For me, Faulkner's stream of consciousness narratives are painful reading, but his character dialogues, in full patois, are Faulkner at his best. There, his Southern-ess, and his Southern wit and humor, are on ample display.

[Dellastarr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while there is something familiar and calming to reread authors. I know some people think.... "I'll read it once and then get rid of the book, once is enough." And where that is true of some books, there are times when you want to reread. You get different perspectives with a reread. Faulkner was my college thesis work, and then, young and going to school in the south, I didn't really see everything as I do now. It is worth another look, maybe just to see how I've changed and grown and see the world. Which in some ways is exactly what Faulkner did with his characters. Sound and Fury, Absalom Absalom and so many short stories. People who needed to move on and did or didn't. Is that where we are again? Longing for some "golden age" that no longer exists and should no longer exist. I do see a reason to revisit stories. A few days ago I watched the brilliant play, Good Night and Good Luck and talk about timely again. Clooney and the cast presented that play in such a powerful way with references to what is CURRENTLY happening in our 2025 political landscape. So yes, rereading, worth it.

[Robert Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

a challenging read but worth the effort. Excerpts from many of Faulkner's books. Several are outstanding, esp. The Bear

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this novel by Faulkner again. Benjy, Caddie, Quentin, and horrible Jason! And I just love Dilsey, the only good and sane one in the novel. I may read it again soon.

[Riderreader]

The Sound and The Fury

[Jonathan]

None

[Rusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Used this book in a class in college. HB in very good condition with dustcover. You will find a few notes from class in the text. Great book.

[Andrew Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nearly unintelligible but a hallmark of American Literature nonetheless.