Back Novels 1942–1954

William Faulkner: Novels 1942–1954

Go Down, Moses | Intruder in the Dust | Requiem for a Nun | A Fable

Edited by Joseph Blotner and Noel Polk

“The Library of America’s distinguished series has been tracing Faulkner’s career by issuing his fiction in sets such as this one…. What we have here are four memorable works from what may well have been William Faulkner’s most productive and provocative period.”—Bill Peschel, Rock Hill Herald

Overview

Overview

The Moviegoer Intruder in the Dust captures the chilling reality of Jim Crow
November 20, 2017

News Remembering Faulkner scholar Noel Polk (1943–2012)
November 17, 2017

The years 1942 to 1954 saw William Faulkner’s rise to literary celebrity—sought after by Hollywood, lionized by the critics, awarded a Nobel Prize in 1950 and the Pulitzer and National Book Award for 1954. But, despite his success, he was plagued by depression and alcohol and haunted by a sense that he had more to achieve—and a finite amount of time and energy to achieve it.

This Library of America volume collects the novels written during this crucial period; defying the odds, Faulkner continued to break new ground in American fiction. He delved deeper into themes of race and religion and furthered his experiments with fictional structure and narrative voice. These newly restored texts, based on Faulkner’s manuscripts, typescripts, and proof sheets, are free of the changes introduced by the original editors and are faithful to the author’s intentions.

Go Down, Moses (1942) is a haunting novel made up of seven related stories that explore the intertwined lives of black, white, and Indian inhabitants of Yoknapatawpha County. It includes “The Bear,” one of the most famous works in all American fiction, with its evocation of “the wilderness, the big woods, bigger and older than any recorded document.”

Characters from Go Down, Moses reappear in Intruder in the Dust (1948). Part detective novel, part morality tale, it is a compassionate story of a black man on trial and the growing moral awareness of a southern white boy.

Requiem for a Nun (1951) is a sequel to Sanctuary. With an unusual structure combining novel and play, it tells the fate of the passionate, haunted Temple Drake and the murder case through which she achieves a tortured redemption. Prose interludes condense millennia of local history into a swirling counterpoint.

In A Fable (1954), a recasting of the Christ story set during World War I, Faulkner wanted to “try to tell what I had found in my lifetime of truth in some important way before I had to put the pen down and die.” The novel, which earned a Pulitzer Prize, is both an anguished spiritual parable and a drama of mutiny, betrayal, and violence in the barracks and on the battlefields.

The editors of this volume are Joseph Blotner and Noel Polk. Joseph Blotner, who wrote the notes, was professor of English emeritus at the University of Michigan. Biographer of William Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren, he is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and the French Legion of Honor. Noel Polk is professor of English at Mississippi State University and editor of The Mississippi Quarterly. He has edited the texts in all five volumes of William Faulkner’s novels for The Library of America.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

This volume is available for adoption in the Guardian of American Letters Fund.

32.00 List Price: $40.00 (Save: 20%) Free shipping on orders $50 and over

Or buy from our partners

Phone orders: 1-800-964-5778 Request product #200735

ISBN: 978-0-94045085-1 1115 pages

LOA books are distributed worldwide by Penguin Random House

N° 73 Library of America Series

Subscribers can purchase the slipcased edition by signing in to their accounts.

Related Books

William Faulkner: Novels 1926–1929 LOA N°164

William Faulkner: Novels 1936–1940 LOA N°48

William Faulkner: Novels 1930–1935 LOA N°25

William Faulkner: Novels 1957–1962 LOA N°112

William Faulkner: Stories LOA N°375

Library of America

CURATOR

A champion of America’s great writers and timeless works, Library of America guides readers in finding and exploring the exceptional writing that reflects the nation’s history and culture.

Learn More

PUBLISHER

From poetry, novels, and memoirs to journalism, crime writing, and science fiction, the more than 300 volumes published by Library of America are widely recognized as America’s literary canon.

Browse our books Subscribe

NON-PROFIT

With contributions from donors, Library of America preserves and celebrates a vital part of our cultural heritage for generations to come.

Support our mission

William Faulkner: Novels 1942–1954

Related Books

Get 10% off your first Library of America purchase.