Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

‘He is the greatest artist the South has produced.… Indeed, through his many novels and short stories, Faulkner fights out the moral problem which was repressed after the nineteenth century [yet] for all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man. Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatness of our classics.’

—RALPH ELLISON

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‘Faulkner, more than most men, was aware of human strength as well of human weakness. He knew that the understanding and the resolution of fear are a large part of the writer’s reason for being.’

—JOHN STEINBECK

‘For range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterization, humor, and tragic intensity, [Faulkner’s works] are without equal in our time and country.’

—ROBERT PENN WARREN

‘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

WILLIAM FAULKNER’S WORKS

THE MARBLE FAUN (1924)

SOLDIER’S PAY (1926)

MOSQUITOES (1927)

SARTORIS (1929) [FLAGS IN THE DUST (1973)]

THE SOUND AND THE FURY (1929)

As I LAY DYING (1930)

SANCTUARY (1931)

THESE 13 (1931)

LIGHT IN AUGUST (1932)

A GREEN BOUGH (1933)

DOCTOR MARTINO AND OTHER STORIES (1934)

PYLON (1935)

ABSALOM, ABSALOM! (1936)

THE UNVANQUISHED (1938)

THE WILD PALMS [IF I FORGET THEE JERUSALEM] (1939)

THE HAMLET (1940)

GO DOWN, MOSES AND OTHER STORIES (1942)

INTRUDER IN THE DUST (1948)

KNIGHT’S GAMBIT (1949)

COLLECTED STORIES OF WILLIAM FAULKNER (1950)

NOTES ON A HORSETHIEF (1951)

REQUIEM FOR A NUN (1954)

A FABLE (1954)

BIG WOODS (1955)

THE TOWN (1957)

THE MANSION (1959)

THE REIVERS (1962)

UNCOLLECTED STORIES OF WILLIAM FAULKNER (1979, POSTHUMOUS)

ALSO BY WILLIAM FAULKNER

ABSALOM, ABSALOM!

One of Faulkner’s finest achievements, Absalom, Absalom! is the story of Thomas Sutpen and the ruthless, single-minded pursuit of his grand design—to forge a dynasty in Jefferson, Mississippi, in 1830—which is ultimately destroyed (along with Sutpen himself) by his two sons.

AS I LAY DYING

As I Lay Dying is the harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Told by each of the family members—including Addie herself—the novel ranges from dark comedy to deepest pathos.

A FABLE

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, this allegorical novel about World War I is set in the trenches of France and deals with a mutiny in a French regiment.

FLAGS IN THE DUST

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.

LIGHT IN AUGUST

A novel about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, Light in August tells the tales of guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen; and Joe Christmas, an enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.

THE REIVERS

One of Faulkner’s comic masterpieces and winner of a Pulitzer Prize, The Reivers is a picaresque tale that tells of three unlikely car thieves from rural Mississippi and their wild misadventures in the fast life of Memphis—from horse smuggling to bawdy houses.

REQUIEM FOR A NUN

The sequel to Faulkner’s most sensational novel Sanctuary, was written twenty years later but takes up the story of Temple Drake eight years after the events related in Sanctuary. Temple is now married to Gowan Stevens. The book begins when the death sentence is pronounced on the nurse Nancy for the murder of Temple and Gowan’s child. In an attempt to save her, Temple goes to see the judge to confess her own guilt. Told partly in prose, partly in play form, Requiem for a Nun is a haunting exploration of the impact of the past on the present.

THE SOUND AND THE FURY

One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in American literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the man-child Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant.

THE UNVANQUISHED

The Unvanquished is a novel of the Sartoris family, who embody the ideal of Southern honor and its transformation through war, defeat, and Reconstruction: Colonel John Sartoris, who is murdered by a business rival after the war; his son Bayard, who finds an alternative to bloodshed; and Granny Millard, the matriarch, who must put aside her code of gentility in order to survive.

Snopes Trilogy

THE HAMLET