William Faulkner

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Lore & Background

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 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 childhood was shaped by stories of the Civil War, slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, and his family, particularly his great-grandfather William Clark Falkner, a Confederate colonel and near-legendary figure. Faulkner initially excelled in school and skipped the second grade, but later became withdrawn, occasionally played truant, and never graduated from high school. He met Phil Stone at age 17, who mentored him and introduced him to writers like James Joyce. Faulkner attempted to join the US Army during World War I but was rejected for being under weight and his short stature of 5'5"; he instead joined the Royal Air Force (Canada) with a forged letter of reference, enlisted in Toronto on July 10, 1918, as a Private (II Class), No.173799, and was discharged on January 4, 1919, having served 179 days. He did not receive cockpit training or ever fly. His surname changed from 'Falkner' to 'Faulkner' around 1918, possibly due to a typesetter's error.

Reader's Guide

Faulkner's reputation grew following publication of Malcolm Cowley's The Portable Faulkner (1946), 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. Ralph Ellison called him 'the greatest artist the South has produced.' Faulkner's significance lies in his creation of Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional landscape that explores themes of race, history, and the human condition in the American South. His innovative narrative techniques influenced 20th-century literature. Despite never graduating high school, his body of work—including novels, short stories, and screenplays—cements his legacy as a central figure in American letters. Faulkner died from a heart attack on July 6, 1962, following a fall from his horse the month before.

Did You Know?

• Faulkner's surname changed from 'Falkner' to 'Faulkner' around 1918, possibly due to a typesetter's error on the title page of his first book.
• He enlisted in the Royal Air Force (Canada) on July 10, 1918, as a Private (II Class), No.173799, but never received cockpit training or flew.
• Faulkner never graduated from high school, repeating the eleventh and twelfth grades before dropping out.
• He wrote his first novel set in Yoknapatawpha County, Flags in the Dust, in the summer of 1927, but it was rejected by publisher Boni & Liveright.
• The film To Have and Have Not is the only film with contributions by two Nobel laureates: Faulkner as screenwriter and Ernest Hemingway as author of the adapted novel.

The Yoknapatawpha Universe

Few American writers have constructed as densely layered a fictional world as William Faulkner did across his novels and short stories. At its heart sits Yoknapatawpha County, an imagined Mississippi setting that functions as a literary proxy for Lafayette County, the real place where he spent most of his adult life. Starting with Sartoris in 1927, he kept returning to that landscape, weaving characters whose destinies crossed over generations. The late 1920s and 1930s yielded an extraordinary sequence: The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), and later Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and The Wild Palms. His debut novel, Soldiers' Pay, came in 1925 after a sojourn in New Orleans. He is the only Mississippi-born writer to have received that distinction. Two further novels, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962), brought him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Together, these honors anchor his standing as one of the most influential literary voices of the twentieth century and, in many readers' eyes, the greatest voice the Southern tradition has produced.

The Shadow of the Elder Falkner

William Cuthbert Falkner entered the world on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi, the eldest of four sons of Murry Cuthbert Falkner and Maud Butler. The family occupied the upper middle class but fell short of the old feudal cotton aristocracy. After his mother vetoed his father's plan to become a Texas rancher, the household moved to Oxford in 1902, where Murry ran a livery stable and hardware store before becoming business manager at the University of Mississippi. Young William grew up steeped in the oral histories his elders shared: tales of the Civil War, slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, and the family's own tangled past. None loomed larger than his great-grandfather, William Clark Falkner, a man born into poverty who became a Confederate colonel, a strict disciplinarian, a twice-accused murderer acquitted both times, a member of the Mississippi House, and a part-owner of a railroad before being killed by a co-owner. The elder Falkner's near-legendary biography fed directly into the younger Faulkner's fiction. In school, William initially excelled and skipped a grade, but by the fourth or fifth year he turned inward, grew truant, and eventually repeated both eleventh and twelfth grades without earning a diploma. As a teenager he courted Estelle Oldham, the popular daughter of a local major, only to watch her accept Cornell Franklin's marriage proposal instead.

The War Years and Early Struggles

By his mid-teens, Faulkner had found a kindred spirit in Phil Stone, a Yale and Ole Miss graduate four years his senior who recognized the promise in the boy's early poetry and mentored him through the works of James Joyce and other modernists. Stone also became the first to submit Faulkner's poems and short stories to publishers, only to face a wall of rejections. In the spring of 1918, Faulkner traveled north to live with Stone at Yale, his first time outside the South, where he encountered writers including Sherwood Anderson, Robert Frost, and Ezra Pound. With the First World War raging, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army but was reportedly turned down for being underweight and standing just five feet five. He then attempted to join the British Army for a commission, ultimately landing in the Royal Canadian Air Force with a forged letter of reference. He enlisted in Toronto on July 10, 1918, as a Private (II Class), but the war ended before he ever saw active service overseas; his entire stint amounted to 179 days of training at a recruit depot, and he never received cockpit instruction or flew. Discharged in January 1919, he returned to Oxford and, by his own later accounts, told embellished war stories and even faked a combat wound. That same year, his family surname was officially altered from Falkner to Faulkner.

Hollywood, Late Honors, and a Sudden End

Faulkner's standing in the literary world transformed after Malcolm Cowley assembled The Portable Faulkner in 1946, introducing his body of work to a far broader audience and setting the stage for the 1949 Nobel Prize. Beyond the page, he found an unexpected second career as a Hollywood screenwriter, contributing to Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not, an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's novel, and to The Big Sleep, drawn from Raymond Chandler's detective story. The Hemingway adaptation holds a unique distinction: it is the only film to carry the creative fingerprints of two Nobel laureates. His later novels continued to draw top honors; A Fable in 1954 and The Reivers in 1962 each won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Yet his life ended abruptly. In June 1962, he suffered a fall from his horse in Oxford, and on July 6 of that year, a heart attack took him at the age of sixty-four. Ralph Ellison, the novelist and critic, summed up the loss by calling Faulkner the greatest artist the South had ever produced. Few would dispute the assessment.