New Releases by William Faulkner

Through the monologues of a dying mother’s children and neighbors, William Faulkner explores the emotional complexities of loss and existence, raising the fundamental question of what it truly means to live.

From the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Sound and the Fury , a Southern gothic classic about a small-town spinster''s disturbing hidden life. A literary classic from one of the twentieth century''s greatest American writers, A Rose for Emily is William Faulkner at his finest. The community of the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi, has come together for the funeral of longtime resident Emily Grierson, an eccentric recluse and one of the last antebellum Southern aristocrats. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn the tragedy of Emily''s life—the father who kept her from marrying and the northerner who claimed her heart before mysteriously disappearing. The world moves on while Emily''s life remains seemingly unchanged. It''s only after Emily is laid to rest that the townsfolk learn her horrifying secrets . . . "The greatest artist the South has produced." —Ralph Ellison "No man ever put more of his heart and soul into the written word than did William Faulkner. If you want to know all you can about that heart and soul, the fiction where he put it is still right there." —Eudora Welty

The Sound and the Fury is one of William Faulkner’s most celebrated novels, and a landmark of American literature. Famous for its non-chronological structure and experimental style, the novel focuses on the once-prominent Compson family, descendants of planter aristocrats who have declined in both social standing and material wealth. As white landowners in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha in Mississippi, they continue to employ an African-American family to serve them. Each of the Compson parents has withdrawn from responsibility for their children, so the matriarch of the servant family, Dilsey, effectively raises their three sons and daughter. Each of the four parts of the novel is told from a different point of view, with each of the first three sections narrated by a different Compson son. In the first chapter, set on the day before Easter Sunday in 1928, the narrator is the mentally disabled thirty-three-year-old Benjy. The second chapter enters the mind of troubled Harvard student Quentin, who is finishing his year at the university. The third chapter, set on Good Friday, 1928, is narrated by the callous and mercenary brother Jason, who now works as a clerk at a farming supply store; and finally, on Easter Sunday 1928, the perspective is that of an omniscient narrator, though the main character of the section emerges as Dilsey. Central to each of the sons’ sections is their sister Caddy, whose rebellion as a young woman brings pain upon Benjy, profoundly disturbs Quentin, enrages Jason, and accelerates the family’s already precipitous decline. The book is noted for its nonlinearity, not only in the order of its four narratives but in the sequences of events recorded within the first two of them: Faulkner makes heavy use of a “stream-of-consciousness” style to relate Benjy’s and Quentin’s memories and thoughts, which jump around temporally. Non-standard italics and punctuation contribute to the effect. The influence of James Joyce upon the first two narratives was immediately identified by contemporary critics, though Edward Crickmay labeled the book “an even tougher proposition for the general novel reader than Ulysses.” Despite this compliment, its initial reception was mixed in general; it was described as inaccessible, even “unreadable.” At the same time, it was acknowledged for its innovative development of the stream-of-consciousness technique, and for its attentive depiction of the postbellum American South, in particular the decay of its formerly slavery-based aristocracy and the value system of that class. The Sound and the Fury was Faulkner’s fourth novel, written after a lengthy struggle to have his third novel published. He later wrote that the novel arose from a single image, that of the character Caddy climbing a tree as a small child; and that the entirety of the story is present in the first narrative, with the following three having been written to clarify it. In 1945 Faulkner wrote an appendix that both explained and extended the novel, describing the fates of some of the characters; while quickly seen to introduce plot inconsistencies, it’s still often reprinted with the novel. The Compsons’ “tale full of sound and fury” both illustrates a particular historical context and explores more widely relevant themes. The novel’s title, taken from a famous speech in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, points to a central concern with time. The book depicts the march of change in the mores of the American South over the first three decades of the twentieth century, but also the possibility, not limited to that setting, of a family’s disintegration over generations, and the consequences of various distinct responses—notably despair, rage, flight, and resignation—to rotten domestic and social environments. A tragedy of idiocy, memory, and the “dusty death” of an era, The Sound and the Fury signified nothing less than a turning point in American literary history and modernism. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

Capturing the post–World War I atmosphere of the Lost Generation on American soil, William Faulkner explores the war’s emotional impact on three weary veterans and their Southern hometown in Georgia.

The Sound and the Fury is a novel by the American author William Faulkner. It employs several narrative styles, including stream of consciousness. Published in 1929, The Sound and the Fury was Faulkner''s fourth novel, and was not immediately successful. In 1931, however, when Faulkner''s sixth novel, Sanctuary, was published—a sensationalist story, which Faulkner later said was written only for money—The Sound and the Fury also became commercially successful, and Faulkner began to receive critical attention.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.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. The Sound and the Fury is a novel by the American author William Faulkner: This innovative and pioneering novel is known for its exploration of themes of identity, memory, and legacy. Faulkner''s writing is complex and layered, challenging readers to grapple with the complexities of human consciousness and the mysteries of the human experience. Key Aspects of the Book "The Sound and the Fury": Stream of Consciousness: The book employs a unique and innovative technique known as stream of consciousness, providing readers with an intimate look into the consciousness of its characters. Legacy and Memory: The book explores the themes of legacy and memory, highlighting the ways in which the past shapes and informs the present. Human Consciousness: The book provides readers with a profound exploration of human consciousness and the complexities of the human mind. William Faulkner was an American writer and Nobel Laureate, known for his distinctive voice, complex syntax, and innovative narrative techniques. Born in 1897, he wrote several visionary works of fiction, including "As I Lay Dying" and "Absalom, Absalom!"

A Fable tells the story of Corporal Stephen, an allegorical figure whose traitorous actions stop, briefly, fighting in a small part of the front in France during the First World War. Told from various perspectives, A Fable explores the humanity of war and the nature of power. Author William Faulkner considered A Fable to be his masterpiece, and laboured more than a decade on the manuscript. The novel won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and is now considered one of the major works in Faulkner’s canon. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

Published early in the author’s legendary career and collected here in a single illuminating volume, these are William Faulkner’s only two works of poetry: The Marble Faun (1924) and A Green Bough (1933). “These are primarily the poems of youth and a simple heart. They are the poems of a mind that reacts directly to sunlight and trees and skies and blue hills, reacts without evasion or self-consciousness. They are drenched in sunlight and color as is the land in which they were written, the land which gave birth and sustenance to their author. He has roots in this soil as surely and inevitably as has a tree. . . . The author of these poems is a man steeped in the soil of his native land, a Southerner by every instinct, and, more than that, a Mississippian. George Moor sad that all universal art became great by first being provincial, and the sunlight and mocking-birds and blue hills of North Mississippi are a part of this young man’s very being.”—from the preface to The Marble Faun, by Phil Stone

“I’m a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can’t and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing that, only then does he take up novel writing.” —William Faulkner Winner of the National Book Award Forty-two stories make up this magisterial collection by the writer who stands at the pinnacle of modern American fiction. Compressing an epic expanse of vision into hard and wounding narratives, Faulkner’s stories evoke the intimate textures of place, the deep strata of history and legend, and all the fear, brutality, and tenderness of the human condition. These tales are set not only in Yoknapatawpha County, but in Beverly Hills and in France during World War I. They are populated by such characters as the Faulknerian archetypes Flem Snopes and Quentin Compson, as well as by ordinary men and women who emerge so sharply and indelibly in these pages that they dwarf the protagonists of most novels.

This invaluable volume, which has been republished to commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of Faulkner''s birth, contains some of the greatest short fiction by a writer who defined the course of American literature. Its forty-five stories fall into three categories: those not included in Faulkner''s earlier collections; previously unpublished short fiction; and stories that were later expanded into such novels as The Unvanquished, The Hamlet, and Go Down, Moses. With its Introduction and extensive notes by the biographer Joseph Blotner, Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner is an essential addition to its author''s canon--as well as a book of some of the most haunting, harrowing, and atmospheric short fiction written in the twentieth century.

The Mansion completes Faulkner’s great trilogy of the Snopes family in the mythical county of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi, which also includes The Hamlet and The Town. Beginning with the murder of Jack Houston and ending with the murder of Flem Snopes, it traces the downfall of the indomitable post-bellum family who managed to seize control of the town of Jefferson within a generation.

This book is a powerful discussion of the novels, short stories, and poems of William Faulkner. Intended for both the general reader as well as those already fully acquainted with his work, My Mother is a Fish illustrates the wisdom and genius of this great modernist of classical twentieth century American Literature. Janet C. Nosek provides a personal commentary on quotations and short passages that show the wide range of style, language, themes, and connections found in Faulkner''s fiction. Both instructive and entertaining, this book will be of great interest to literary scholars and a helpful ancillary text as well.

"The Bear, " "The Old People, " "A Bear Hunt, " "Race at Morning"--some of Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner''s most famous stories are collected in this volume--in which he observed, celebrated, and mourned the fragile otherness that is nature, as well as the cruelty and humanity of men. "Contains some of Faulkner''s best work."

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • Family drama and the legacy of slavery haunt this epic tale of an enigmatic stranger in Jefferson, Mississippi—from one of the most acclaimed writers of the twentieth century. One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years “Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.” —William Faulkner Absalom, Absalom! is Faulkner’s epic tale of Thomas Sutpen, a man who comes to the South in the early 1830s to wrest his mansion out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. He was a man, Faulkner said, “who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him.”

Relates the experiences of four individuals competing in an aviation contest during the Mardi Gras celebration in New Valois

In 1925 William Faulkner began his professional writing career in earnest while living in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He had published a volume of poetry ("The Marble Faun"), had written a few book reviews, and had contributed sketches to the University of Mississippi student newspaper. He had served a stint in the Royal Canadian Air Corps and while working in a New Haven bookstore had become acquainted with the wife of the writer Sherwood Anderson. In his first six months in New Orleans, where the Andersons were living, Faulkner made his initial foray into serious fiction writing. Here in one volume are the pieces he wrote while in the French Quarter. These were published locally in the "Times-Picayune" and in the "Double Dealer," a "little magazine" based in New Orleans. "New Orleans Sketches" broadcasts seeds that would take root in later works. In their themes and motifs these sketches and stories foreshadow the intense personal vision and style that would characterize Faulkner''s mature fiction. As his sketches take on parallels with Christian liturgy and as they portray such characters as an idiot boy similar to Benjy Compson, they reveal evidence of his early literary sophistication. In praise of "New Orleans Sketches" Alfred Kazin wrote in the "New York Times Book Review" that "the interesting thing for us now, who can see in this book the outline of the writer Faulkner was to become, is that before he had published his first novel he had already determined certain main themes in his work." In his trail-blazing introduction Carvel Collins, often called "Faulkner''s best-informed critic," illuminates the period when the sketches were written as the time that Faulkner was making the transition from poet to novelist. "For the reader of Faulkner," Paul Engle wrote in the "Chicago Tribune," "the book is indispensable. Its brilliant introduction . . . is full both of helpful information . . . and of fine insights." "We gain something more than a glimpse of the mind of a young genius asserting his power against a partially indifferent environment," states the "Book Exchange" (London). "The long introduction . . . must rank as a major literary contribution to our knowledge of an outstanding writer: perhaps the greatest of our times." Carvel Collins (1912-1990), one of the foremost authorities on Faulkner''s life and works, served on the faculties of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Swarthmore College, and the University of Notre Dame, where he was the first to teach a course devoted to Faulkner''s writing.

This grand misadventure is the story of three unlikely thieves, or reivers: 11-year-old Lucius Priest and two of his family''s retainers. In 1905, these three set out from Mississippi for Memphis in a stolen motorcar. The astonishing and complicated results reveal Faulkner as a master of the picaresque. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Classic of American short fiction; story of a boy''s coming to terms with the adult world.

Grief-stricken World War I veteran takes his own life after his son is born.