Best Selling Books by William Faulkner

Faulkner''s second novel is a high-spirited satiric romp set on an ill-fated pleasure cruise out of New Orleans. Wealthy Mrs. Maurier, the widowed heiress of an old New Orleans family, likes to collect "artistic types." When she plans a multi-day outing on her yacht and manages to corral aboard a group that includes a melancholic poet, a brooding sculptor, a self-important writer, her unconventional young niece, and assorted other odd characters, the results are both disastrous and hilarious. When the ship runs aground near an overheated swamp, the pretensions and frustrations of its various passengers reach a fever pitch. Faulkner''s lyrical descriptions, witty dialogue, and forays into fluid stream-of-consciousness demonstrate in lighter form the literary techniques that the young author later came to be so celebrated for.

A group of soldiers travel by train across the United States in the aftermath of the First World War. One of them is horribly scarred, blind and almost entirely mute. Moved by his condition, a few civilian fellow travellers decided to see him home to Georgia, to a family who believed him dead, and a fiancée who grew tired of waiting. Faulkner''s first novel deals powerfully with lives blighted by war.

A beautifully illustrated children’s book unlike any other—a tender and atmospheric tale written by William Faulkner as a present for his future stepdaughter “If you are kind to helpless things, you don’t need a Wishing Tree to make things come true.” A strange boy leads a birthday girl and her companions on a hunt for the wishing tree, which brings them many surprising and magical adventures. Written in 1927 and eventually published in 1964 as a limited edition featuring Don Bolognese’s striking illustrations, The Wishing Tree reveals another side to a visionary of American letters, making it a welcome gift to children and to all readers of Faulkner.

An essential collection of William Faulkner’s mature nonfiction work, updated, with an abundance of new material. This unique volume includes Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, a review of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (in which he suggests that Hemingway has found God), and newly collected gems, such as the acerbic essay “On Criticism” and the beguiling “Note on A Fable.” It also contains eloquently opinionated public letters on everything from race relations and the nature of fiction to wild-squirrel hunting on his property. This is the most comprehensive collection of Faulkner’s brilliant non-fiction work, and a rare look into the life of an American master.

Reprinted from Collected Stories of William Faulkner, by permission of Random House, Inc.

Includes Spotted Horses, Old Man, and The Bear.

The story of an old Southern tragedy which befalls the Sutpen family. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

The complete text, published for the first time in 1973, of Faulkner’s third novel, written when he was twenty-nine, which appeared, with his reluctant consent, in a much cut version in 1929 as Sartoris.

In the 1940s, at his home, Rowan Oak, in Oxford, Mississippi, Faulkner told ghost stories to the children in his family. One of those children, Dean Faulkner Wells, has recounted some of these stories in this book. Though the world knew Faulkner as a Nobel Prize-winning author, the children of Rowan Oak called him "Pappy." and knew him as the teller of tales that were tragic, sorrowful, funny, and sometimes terrifying

From February to June of 1957 and 1958, William Faulkner was Writer-in-Residence at the University of Virginia under a grant from the Emily Clark Balch Fund for American Literature. Mr. Faulkner held thirty-seven group conferences and an uncounted number of individual office meetings with students and staff of the University. He encouraged groups to ask questions about his writing and indeed about anything, which resulted in his answering publicly over two thousand queries on everything from spelling to the nature of man. - Preface.

A treasury of literary history featuring caricatures of bohemian life in 1920s New Orleans with captions by William Faulkner. After meeting in the French Quarter, Nobel Prize–winning novelist William Faulkner and renowned silver artist William Spratling shared a house together—and collaborated on a parody volume that offered a witty portrait of the creative denizens of the city, a group that included such future icons as publisher and Broadway producer Horace Liveright, Pulitzer-winning biographer Carl Van Doren,; novelist John Dos Passos, actress and screenwriter Anita Loos, and others. This unique book provides both an enjoyable glimpse into the early lives of prominent literary and artistic figures and a snapshot of New Orleans history.

«La vida no es más que una sombra... Una historia narrada por un necio, llena de ruido y furia, que nada significa.» Macbeth, Shakespeare El ruido y la furia es una obra maestra de la literatura. Relata la degeneración progresiva de la familia Compson, sus secretos y las relaciones de amor y odio que la sostienen y la destruyen. Por primera vez, William Faulkner introduce el monólogo interior y revela los diferentes puntos de vista de sus personajes: Benjy, deficiente mental, castrado por sus propios parientes; Quentin, poseído por un amor incestuoso e incapaz de controlar los celos, y Jason, monstruo de maldad y sadismo. El libro se cierra con un apéndice que descubrirá al lector los entresijos de esta saga familiar de Jefferson, Mississippi, conectándola con otros personajes de Yoknapatawpha, territorio creado por Faulkner como marco de muchas de sus novelas. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire. . . . I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools." —from The Sound and the Fury The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character''s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner''s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

The Sound and the Fury is set in Jefferson, Mississippi, in the first third of the 20th century. The novel centers on the Compson family, former Southern aristocrats who are struggling to deal with the dissolution of their family and its reputation. Over the course of the 30 years or so related in the novel, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically. The novel is separated into four narratives. The first, reflecting events occurring and consequent thoughts and memories on April 7, 1928, is written in the voice and from the perspective of Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, an intellectually disabled 33-year-old man. Benjy''s section is characterized by a disjointed narrative style with frequent chronological leaps. The second section, taking place on June 2, 1910, focuses on Quentin Compson, Benjy''s older brother, and the events leading up to Quentin''s suicide. This section is written in the stream-of-consciousness style and also contains frequent chronological leaps. In the third section, set a day before the first on April 6, 1928, Faulkner writes from the point of view of Jason, Quentin''s cynical younger brother. In the fourth section, set a day after the first on April 8, 1928, Faulkner introduces a third-person omniscient point of view. This last section primarily focuses on Dilsey, one of the Compsons'' black servants, and her relations with Jason and "Miss" Quentin Compson (daughter of Quentin''s sister Caddy), as Dilsey contemplates the thoughts and deeds of everyone in the Compson family. In 1945, Faulkner wrote a "Compson Appendix" to be included with future printings of The Sound and the Fury. It contains a 30-page history of the Compson family from 1699 to 1945.

As I Lay Dying is a 1930 Southern Gothic novel by American author William Faulkner. Faulkner''s fifth novel, it is consistently ranked among the best novels of 20th-century literature.The title derives from Book XI of Homer''s Odyssey (William Marris''s 1925 translation), wherein Agamemnon tells Odysseus "As I lay dying, the woman with the dog''s eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades." The novel utilizes stream of consciousness writing technique, multiple narrators, and varying chapter lengths. The book is narrated by 15 different characters over 59 chapters. It is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her poor, rural family''s quest and motivations-noble or selfish-to honor her wish to be buried in her hometown of Jefferson, Mississippi. In the novel''s first chapters, Addie is alive, though in ill health. Addie and others expect her to die soon, and she sits at a window watching as her firstborn child, Cash, builds her coffin. Anse, Addie''s husband, waits on the porch, while their daughter, Dewey Dell, fans her mother in the July heat. The night after Addie dies a heavy rainstorm sets in; rivers rise and wash out bridges that the family will need to cross to get to Jefferson. The family''s trek by wagon begins, with Addie''s non-embalmed body in the coffin. Along the way, Anse and the five children encounter various difficulties. Stubborn Anse frequently rejects any offers of assistance, including meals or lodging, so at times the family goes hungry and sleeps in barns. At other times he refuses to accept loans from people, claiming he wishes to "be beholden to no man," thus manipulating the would-be-lender into giving him charity as a gift not to be repaid.

Intruder in the Dust is a novel about an African American farmer accused of murdering a Caucasian man. Nobel Prize-winning American author William Faulkner published it in 1948. The novel focuses on Lucas Beauchamp, a black farmer accused of murdering a white man. He is exonerated through the efforts of black and white teenagers and a spinster from a long-established Southern family. It was written as Faulkner''s response as a Southern writer to the racial problems facing the South.[citation needed] Intruder in the Dust is notable for its use of stream of consciousness style of narration. The novel also includes lengthy passages on the Southern memory of the Civil War, one of which Shelby Foote quoted in Ken Burns'' documentary The Civil War. The characters of Lucas Beauchamp and his wife, Molly, first appeared in Faulkner''s collection of short fiction, Go Down, Moses. A story by Faulkner, "Lucas Beauchamp," was published in 1999. Intruder in the Dust was turned into a film of the same name directed by Clarence Brown in 1949 after MGM paid film rights of $50,000 to Faulkner. The film was shot in Faulkner''s home town of Oxford, Mississippi.

The Sound and the Fury is a novel by author William Faulkner. It employs several narrative styles, including stream of consciousness.

The Reivers: A Reminiscence, published in 1962, is the last novel by the American author William Faulkner. The bestselling novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1963. Faulkner previously won this award for his book A Fable, making him one of only four authors to be awarded it more than once. Unlike many of his earlier works, it is a straightforward narration and eschews the complicated literary techniques of his more well known works. It is a picaresque novel, and as such may seem uncharacteristically lighthearted given its subject matter. For these reasons, The Reivers is often ignored by Faulkner scholars or dismissed as a lesser work. In the early 20th century, an 11-year-old boy named Lucius Priest (a distant cousin of the McCaslin/Edmonds family Faulkner wrote about in Go Down, Moses) somewhat unwittingly gets embroiled in a plot to go to Memphis with dimwitted family friend and manservant Boon Hogganbeck. Boon steals (reives, thereby becoming a reiver) Lucius'' grandfather''s car, one of the first cars in Yoknapatawpha County. They discover that Ned McCaslin, a black man who works with Boon at Lucius'' grandfather''s stables, has stowed away with them (Ned is also a blood cousin of the Priests). When they reach Memphis, Boon and Lucius stay in a boarding-house (brothel). Miss Reba, the madam, and Miss Corrie, Boon''s favorite girl, are appalled to see that Boon has brought a child. In fact, Corrie''s nephew Otis, an ill-mannered and off-putting boy about Lucius'' age, is already staying there. In the evening, Otis reveals that Corrie (whose real name is Everbe Corinthia) used to prostitute herself in their old town, and he would charge men to watch her through a peephole. Outraged at his conduct, Lucius fights Otis, who cuts his hand with a pocketknife. Boon breaks up the fight but Everbe is so moved by Lucius'' chivalry that she decides to stop whoring. Later, Ned returns to the boarding-house and reveals he traded the car for a supposedly lame racehorse. Corrie, Reba, Ned, Boon and Lucius hatch a scheme to smuggle the horse by rail to a nearby town, Parsham, to race a horse it has lost to twice already. Ned figures that everyone in town will bet against the horse and he can win enough money to buy back the car; he claims to have a secret ability to make the horse run. Corrie uses another client who works for the railroad, Sam, to get them and the horse on a night train. In town, Ned takes Lucius to stay with a black family while they practice for the horse race. Unfortunately, the local lawman named Butch finds them out and attempts to extort sexual favors from Corrie to look the other way. Reba is able to send him away by claiming she will reveal to the town that he intentionally ordered two prostitutes, angering his constituency.

Absalom (Hebrew mean "father of peace") was the third son of David, King of Israel with Maacah, daughter of Talmai, King of Geshur. Absalom, Absalom! details the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen, a white man born into poverty in western Virginia who moves to Mississippi with the dual aims of gaining wealth and becoming a powerful family patriarch. The story is told entirely in flashbacks narrated mostly by Quentin Compson to his roommate at Harvard College, Shreve, who frequently contributes his own suggestions and surmises. The narration of Rosa Coldfield, and Quentin''s father and grandfather, are also included and re-interpreted by Shreve and Quentin, with the total events of the story unfolding in nonchronological order and often with differing details. This results in a peeling-back-the-onion revelation of the true story of the Sutpens. Rosa initially narrates the story, with long digressions and a biased memory, to Quentin Compson, whose grandfather was a friend of Sutpen''s. Quentin''s father then fills in some of the details to Quentin. Finally, Quentin relates the story to his roommate Shreve, and in each retelling, the reader receives more details as the parties flesh out the story by adding layers. The final effect leaves the reader more certain about the attitudes and biases of the characters than about the facts of Sutpen''s story. Thomas Sutpen arrives in Jefferson, Mississippi, with some slaves and a French architect who has been somehow forced into working for him. Sutpen obtains one hundred square miles of land from a local Native American tribe and immediately begins building a large plantation called Sutpen''s Hundred, including an ostentatious mansion. All he needs to complete his plan is a wife to bear him a few children (particularly a son to be his heir), so he ingratiates himself with a local merchant and marries the man''s daughter, Ellen Coldfield. Ellen bears Sutpen two children, a son named Henry and a daughter named Judith, both of whom are destined for tragedy. Henry goes to the University of Mississippi and meets fellow student Charles Bon, who is ten years his senior. Henry brings Charles home for Christmas, and Charles and Judith begin a quiet romance that leads to a presumed engagement. However, Thomas Sutpen realizes that Charles Bon is his son from an earlier marriage and moves to stop the proposed union. Sutpen had worked on a plantation in the French West Indies as overseer and, after subduing a slave uprising, was offered the hand of the plantation owner''s daughter, Eulalia Bon. She bore him a son, Charles. Sutpen did not know that Eulalia was of mixed race until after the marriage and birth of Charles, but when he discovered that he had been deceived, he renounced the marriage as void and left his wife and child (though leaving them his fortune as part of his own moral recompense). The reader also later learns of Sutpen''s childhood, when young Thomas learned that society could base human worth on material worth. It is this episode that sets into motion Thomas'' plan to start a dynasty.