But Faulkner saw the world in visual ways, and his drawings are evidence of what he saw. Also, the adult was shaped by his experiences as a youth, and the school yearbooks provide a context nothing else can of who he was associating with and what he and they were doing in his formative years.

And if one is a Faulkner collector one does not ask why, one just acquires.

Carl Petersen, one of the leading Faulkner collectors ever, said that the yearboks were among the last items he got. Faulknerians are competing with Mississippians to get these scarce items. Which drives up the prices.

In Section 13 of this Catalog I have an Ole Miss from this time perid that does not contain Faulkner contributions but does contain references specifically pertaining to Faulkner.

The 1965 joint edition went through a small number of printings and then disappeared itself. Today neither book of poetry intended for publication by the man who wanted to be a poet is in print.

The publishing history of Faulkner's first two novels has the complexity of a Faulkner plot. Francis Bosha's Faulkner's Soldiers' Pay: A Bibliographic History provides the best insight I know of; and because the publishing histories for both Soldiers' Pay and Mosquitoes seem to be almost exactly parallel I have applied Bosha's information on the one title to the other. I have concerns that Bosha's information is not entirely accurate, but with that warning and my own adjustments here is the publishing history as I understand it of the hardbound editions of the two titles.

Boni and Liveright issued two printings of Soldiers' Pay and one printing of Mosquitoes. The firm went through a reorganization and the 1931 third printing of Soldiers' Pay and second printing of Mosquitoes were credited to Horace Liveright. The titles were then licensed to Sun Dial Press, who issued several printings of the books (all of which are indistinguishable from each other). Liveright Publishing Company (LPC) got the titles back and issued a "New Edition" for both, with reviews of Soldiers' Pay on the back of the dust jackets. Bosha dates these at 1950, I believe them to be older. In the mid-1950s LPC issued new New Editions for both titles. Initially the dust jackets for both listed "Unusual Books" on the backs, and then sometime in the mid or late 1960s the back of the jackets was redesigned to promote "The Genius of George Moore." (The books, however, remained unchanged from the 1950s.)

This is where it gets interesting. I have a hardbound edition of Soldiers' Pay from the 1970s (my estimate) that is described as a second printing of the 1954 edition but that is in fact an entirely new book in a (finally) completely redesigned dust jacket; and a hardbound edition of Mosquitoes from the 1980s (my estimate) in a differently redesigned jacket that is not described as anything. Both are credited to Liveright: not Liveright Publishing; not Horace Liveright; just Liveright. Both bear official book catalog numbers, and an internet search of the numbers leads to W.W. Norton Publishing Company. LPC was acquired by W.W. Norton, who has issued softbound editions of both titles under the Liveright imprint. However, according to Norton those paperbacks are the only editions issued by the company since the mid-50s. In a conversation with customer service Norton seemed unaware that later hardbound editions had ever been issued by them. I have seen very few copies of either of these later hardbound editions. I am becoming very curious.

It should be noted that the 1970s was not the first time that a Liveright-related firm showed a lack of clarity about the terms "edition" and "printing": the second printing of Soldiers' Pay was described by B&L as the second "edition."

B&L is responsible for most of the scarcest commercially-issued Faulkner materials. All Liveright-related reprint editions of Mosquitoes through the 1960s appear in a dust jacket showing people playing cards on a yacht. Most of the first printings were issued in a jacket with a mosquito design. A very few copies - probably no more than fifteen, maybe fewer - of the B&L first printing were produced with a "Yachting Party" jacket. The Yachting Party first printing jacket is extraordinarily scarce. The first printing jacket for Soldiers' Pay is nearly as scarce - many were produced but few have survived. Even rarer is the second printing dust jacket for that title - I know of only one copy. The third printing of Soldiers' Pay is in an entirely redesigned jacket that is exceedingly difficult to find.

Both titles bounced around from softbound publisher to softbound publisher. Some of the softbound editions are quite attractive; except for the first Avon printing of Mosquitoes all of the American softbound editions are common.

See the publishing history at the Soldiers' Pay entry above.

Ninety years later, getting a nice copy of the book itself, with lettering bright and hinges tight, is difficult. Getting a nice copy of the dust jacket is quite difficult, as the paper chipped easily. The copy listed here features a very nice book with a jacket with big big chips. But still presentable, with a very attractive front panel, at a price far below what this title is now selling for.

For a report on a more complete examination of English editions see Meriwether, The Literary Career of William Faulkner (item 15-4 ).

The Sound and the Fury is not just the rarest first printing of the Faulkner major works, it is also the most difficult title to get in even a later printing of the first edition. Second and third printings of other works are relatively easy to come by - not so this one. At the time that I write this I know of only three copies from the entire first edition priced at under $1,000.00. In light of this cost, an ex-library copy in a replacement library binding might not be so bad after all. And a second printing, with the same decorative binding and endpapers as the first, might be an acceptable substitute for a first printing, prices for which start at $1,250 without dust jacket and quickly climb to several times that amount.

In the normal course of a book's published life it goes through a few printings of the first edition; shortly thereafter the original publisher or a reprint publisher brings out a new edition or two; and there are a run of paperbacks. There were two printings of the first edition of As I Lay Dying in the early 1930s and then the book lay dying. The Modern Library, a low-cost (but well produced) series, made most of Faulkner's best work available during years when no other editions were, but the 1946 edition of Dying was an omnibus with The Sound and the Fury - AILD did not rate its own Modern Library edition until 1967. The first paperback edition did not appear until 1964; the first "new" hardbound edition not until that same year. Before that was only a book club release in the late 1950s. A strange neglect, considering how important the book is seen today.

Collectors only want the first printing of the first edition. So why am I offering this second printing? Between 1930, when As I lay Dying and 1933 when this appeared Faulkner's publisher Cape and Smith went through a reorganization. The new firm Smith and Haas would publish Light in August, Pylon, and several other Faulkner titles, but this AILD printing was the first Faulkner book published by what would be for a time Faulkner's publisher. To me that makes this interesting. Technically, since this book had a different publisher than did the first printing I would call this a second edition, but since the editions are identical in all ways except the statement of printing on the copyright page and the name of the publisher (and the address of the publisher on the dust jacket) whether this is a new printing or new edition matters only to bibliographers.

Before Digital Yoknapawtpha, finding particular words in a book was a major undertaking. The Faulkner Concordance Advisory Board and The Faculty Development and Research Fund U.S. Military Academy did the work for us. As I Lay Dying was the first text for which a concordance was created. This hardbound volume, 9" by 11", 428 pages lists almost every word that appears in the text, and the text page(s) it appears on. Depending on your point of view this is now completely obsolete; it is an important record of the work that was being done with Faulkner decades ago; or it is essential for those who prefer working with hard texts.

See item 7(c) above. This edition 8" by 10", 690 pages.

Which in turn raises the question: if this could not be imported to the English-speaking world for whom was this produced? Certainly there were many French people who could read English - were there enough to justify the expense of a book production? France was where James Joyce's Ulysses had been first published when it was banned in the US and England, but Sanctuary was never suppressed, there was not the same "need." It seems even less likely that there were enough English-speakers in Sweden in 1947 to support an English-language edition there with the same prohibitions against importation to the US or UK. Foreign editions in English are uncommon, for obvious reasons. What made Crosby and later Zephyr risk the expense?

A limited edition of 525, a jacket-less book in a fragile slipcase, consisting of prose and poetry reprints from The Double Dealer and one Hemingway poem. According to publisher Paul Romaine the project started with a night of drinking inspiring him to write to Faulkner, leading, when he was sober, to a more productive correspondence. Unfortunately, the signed edition Romaine hoped for, even promoted, never was realized. Hemingway's poem was obtained for no more than $15.00.

By my records this was the third time the two lions of 20th century American letters appeared in a volume together. My congratulations to anyone who can name the other two. My deep, serious appreciation to anyone who can identify one I don't know about.

Number 126 of a limited edition of 300. This was the only publication during Faulkner's lifetime of a story he intended for publication. The story does not appear in a magazione, not in an anthology - this was it until 1979. So a necessary part of a Faulkner collection.

A gorgeous dust jacket - a slight bit of creasing at the top of the spine, otherwise it is essentially as new. It is original, it is unrestored, it is unfaded. The outer glassine wrapper is edge-chipped, but still is better than 90% of the glassine wrappers available. The book itself might be a touch under a fine grade. But the interest is in the jacket. This could have a place of honor in the finest Faulkner collection.

I mentioned above the strange publishing neglect enjoyed by As I Lay Dying. The other Faulkner title to be similarly mistreated was Absalom, Absalom!. The book was successful enough to warrant three printings of the first edition in 1936. Thereafter, however, only the Modern Library was interested in the title (1951) until the Faulkner uniform new edition in 1966 and first paperback in 1967. As I Lay Dying at least had a book club release in the 1950s: AA did not rate that. A truly bizarre publishing history.

Though no other Faulkner title was treated so roughly other titles were surprisingly deemed unworthy of early paperback editions: Light In August did not come out in wrappers until 1965; Go Down Moses not until 1973. Almost the entire central Faulkner canon was unavailable in paperback until after his death.

Absalom, Absalom! and The Unvanquished were published in the UK in a "Transmatic" dust jacket - paper flaps attached to a clear plastic wrapper that covered the front, back and spine. The plastic was brittle; the glue attaching the paper poor. Consequently, few jackets remain intact; and because it was commonly thought that the loose paper flaps had been cut off a full paper jacket and so worthless and discarded when found it is not easy to find a jacket even in pieces. The English jackets for these titles are considerably scarcer than the American jackets. They might be even scarcer than the jacket for the first American Soldiers' Pay. For no good reason even jacketless copies are uncommon.

See note at the English edition of Absalom, Absalom! above.

A softbound advance edition is not a trade paperback edition, nor is it the same as a hardbound review copy, but a soft cover pre-publication edition. There are two schools of thought about editions predating "official" publications. Some people collect only true first editions or limited editions. My opinion, which I have applied to my own collecting, is that advance copies, be they uncorrected proofs or advance reading copies, are bibliographically significant. They document the changes a book goes through both textually and aesthetically in preparation for publication; and the existence of advance copies says something about the author's place in the public eye and publishing hierarchy - the kind of attention an author gets or does not get. Advance copies are also significantly scarcer than first editions - first printings are typically several thousand copies; advance editions might not have several dozen copies! The softbound advance edition of The Wild Palms is the most common of the advance copies of books published during Faulkner's lifetime, with a market appearance rate of perhaps one a year. Making this one of the scarcer as-issued Faulkner publications to appear on the market. Any other softbound advance edition I am fortunate enough to be able to offer for sale is likely even scarcer.

This copy has a dampstain on the page edges. Of more note is a pencil sketch filling the front free end page. My seller identifies the artist as George Little, an African-American doctor who lived in Homestead, PA (near Pittsburgh) until 1950. Whether this adds to value I don't know.

A lesson, if one were needed, of how little clout Faulkner had at this time. Not only could he not get his book published with the title he wanted (If I Forget Thee Jerusalem), no single paperback publisher was initially willing to release the full text or even both sections - Signet and Penguin split the book as it were a spoil of war. Not until six years after sections had been published separately did the full text of Wild Palms (sic) get a paperback release.

This is a surprisingly difficult jacket to find. No plastic pieces to go missing, just a conventional paper jacket that is harder to find than would be guessed.

If the paperback publishers did not respect Faulkner (see my notes on Intruder In the Dust and Wild Palms) Random House did. The first printing identified this as Go Down Moses and Other Stories; thereafter, at Faulkner's insistence "and Other Stories" was dropped, never to appear again. Similarly, Faulkner's anthology was first issued in 1948 as The Collected Stories. In accordance with Faulkner's wishes the "The" was dropped from the spine for all other editions and printings.

The scarcest of the signed limited editions, by far. The limitatiuon is 100, but according to a study no copy over 80 has ever been found, siggesting that only 80 were actually released to the public. Seventy years later most of those copies are in collections and institutions. This edition is difficult to find. At the time I am writing this some copies are available on the market, but at prices starting at twelve thousand dollars, and climbing to thirty-five.

My copy has definite flaws. It has markings and labels from the Binghamtom Public Library. (This book was sold by the library, not stolen from it.) It has tape over both internal hinges - it is unknown if that was to repair damage already there, or to prevent damage. But it is lovely on the outside, and the text is entirely undamaged This was the copy I bought when I could not afford a better one. If you too are on a budget but would like to own a wonderful Faulkner rarity the flaws might be a fair trade for saving thousands of dollars, as they were for me for many years.

Though the black binding is considered the first state of the first edition and therefore the true first edition, at least eight other colored bindings were also used for the first printings and are much, much scarcer than the black. Much. The beige is one of the scarcest. A collector looking for interesting items should seriously consider trying to get the variant first printing bindings of this title.

This uncommon book, published by Armed Services Editions during the Second World War, is almost always found in the second state, with the back of the title page nearly blank. Considerably harder to find are first state copies, with a map on that page. The map is for a different book (The Indigo Necklace by Frances Crane) and appeared in some copies of this book due to a printing error.

According to legend the book that saved Faulkner's career. The jacket for the first printing is hard to find. Even most dealers don't know that the front flap should be not just one layer but three layers with advertisements for other books, and so substitute a jacket from a later printing. And even readers who saved jackets did not think to save the parts of the jacket that are just advertisements and tore off the extra flaps. So you need to be very careful when buying a first "in jacket" that you are getting the correct jacket. Mine has the correct jacket.

By the time this paperback edition came out William Faulkner had written 17 books and gained an international reputation. One would think that someone would have noticed before this hit the bookstore shelves that the photo on the back was not of William but of William's brother John. And if everyone in the book industry had happened to be on vacation at the same time and so not seen the mistake early that someone might have suggested that the photo get fixed before the second printing. That the wrong photo remained on this edition through three printings argues that for all his success elsewhere Faulkner was still a stranger in his own land. This is the biggest bumble in Faulkner publishing.

See item 7(c) above. 9" by 11", 620 pages.

This is one of the titles with a very high rate of false positives for first edition. The spine of the true first edition says "The Collected Stories" as if this were the definitive or only possible collection. When Faulkner objected the "THE" was removed from all subsequent printings. Copies that say "first printing" on the copyright page but do not have THE on the spine are book club issues. Those copies also have the book club indentation on the back cover, clearly marking a book club copy, but sloppy sellers frequently overlook that.

Chatto and Windus, Faulkner's English publisher, published a version of Random House's Collected Stories in 1951. Seven years later they issued a three volume set collecting many more stories. The volumes are individually titled Uncle Willy and Other Stories, Dr Martino and Other Stories and These Thirteen but the books are not exact reissues of the original volumes. These books have no new material, but they are a handsome way of getting 42 of Faulkner's shorter works. Nothing similar was published in the US.

See the note to item 1-20(a) above.

In 1925 Faulkner contributed a series of sketches to the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper and the Double Dealer magazine. The sketches remained in obscurity until Faulkner Studies in Minneapolis, Minnesota published eleven of them in a 1953 limited edition titled Mirrors of Chartres Street. The first book called New Orleans Sketches was published by the Hokuseido Press in Japan in 1955, with 13 sketches in English. Later that year Faulkner Studies published Jealousy and Episode, containing the two sketches published by Hokuseido but omitted from Mirrors, representing the first US book publication of those two stories. Three years later the Rutgers University Press issued its own New Orleans Sketches, with 16 sketches. The Grove Press/ Evergreen released a softbound version of the Rutgers volume in 1961; and Random House reissued the Rutgers volume in hardback in 1968, with an updated introduction and an additional Faulkner essay. What is the true first edition? Obviously the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper and the Double Dealer magazine appearances, but for reasons I do not understand only books are considered first editions, and anyway these magazines and newspapers are virtually-to-definitely impossible to obtain. All but the Grove Press edition offer the first book appearance of something. Thus, one could cite the volume that first published the piece in consideration; or the volume that first published all the pieces being studied; or the Hokuseido Press volume, the first to be titled New Orleans Sketches. Scholars (and obsessed collectors) should have all the significant editions.

The complete The Sound and the Fury, the Nobel Prize speech, and a selection of stories and excerpts from novels.

The signed limited edition has a different binding from the first trade edition - blue covers instead of maroon, bevelled edges, heavier in weight. This is the second copy I have seen with no signature page. These pages do get cut out for the signature but there's no indication that that happened with either of the two copies I have seen. Which makes me think that some copies were bound without the signature page. These are the first printing pages (copyright page says First Printing), so think of it as a variant first printng copy, if you will. I do - the other signature-less copy I've seen is in my collection.

Before the books made it to store shelves Faulkner wrote them. Sometimes by hand, sometimes on typewriter, sometimes both. In the 1980s Garland Publishing issued a set of photocopies of manuscripts in the University of Virginia collection showing the author at work. These volumes show changes Faulkner made - lines or words crossed out and replaced, or newer drafts replacing older. And if you are wondering what Faulkner's handwriting looked like wonder no more. These volumes may be the best evidence of what Faulkner intended to say, and how he got there.
On offer here is one of the two volumes for A Fable. As such it does not provide complete answers. But it does provide many answers. These volumes are not easily found, and when found are often expensive. Even this one volume (hardbound, 9" by 12", 463 pages) shines a light on the mind of William Faulkner.

A collection of Faulkner's stories and the Nobel Prize speech, published in England (and later in Canada) with no American equivalent. Nothing new here, no first appearances, but a necessary volume for the Faulkner collector.

In 1956 Faulkner was part of a convened group of political moderates in Mississippi. Though the group had no lasting impact it did stay together long enough to publish a single issue of The Southern Reposure, a satirical newspaper. According to the autobiography of group member P.D. East, Faulkner was an integral part of the discussions about the paper and was the sole source of its headline. Few of the distributed copies survived, and today this ephemeral artifact is one of the rarer items containing Faulkner creative contributions.

See item 7(c) above. Two volumes, each 9" by 11", 1016 total pages.

See item 7(c) above. Two volumes, each 9" by 11", 1279 total pages.

The title page of this new text describes the work as "from the novel by William Faulkner, adapted to the stage by Ruth Ford," but there is good reason to believe that Faulkner did the writing himself, and what help he had in turning his novel into a play came from Albert Camus, not Ms. Ford.

See item 20 above for discussion about proof copies.

Before he was a famous novelist and short story writer William Faulkner was an artist trying to find his medium and his muse. The poems, drawings and reviews he contributed to University of Mississippi publications in the 1910s and 1920s constitute most of his earliest published work. Critics can argue all they want about influences on Faulkner, but the only answers with any authority are those provided by Faulkner and his work. This volume of his early work is the only obtainable source of most of these materials.

The true first edition was by Kenkyusha in Japan, as Faulkner's University Pieces. The American edition is actually the second edition of the book, though does add some new material. All editions are out of print.

In 1964 Random House reissued The Hamlet, The Town and The Mansion; the three volumes of the Snopes trilogy; in identical back cloth bindings without dust jackets in a cardboard slipcase. The case for almost every set on the market has a photo of Faulkner. The books that come in those cases have book club slugs on the back cover. I believe that this was a book club issue. A small number of sets come in a slipcase with a gold label and no photo. Though this is less attractive, I believe this is the first edition of this set. Based on my limited observations, the gold-label books do not have slugs. The gold label set is very, very uncommon. Really very uncommon. This gold label set for sale does not have tissue wrappers: I have seen only one set that does, and do not know if the tissue was original or added by an owner. There is a stain from a removed sticker on the box. The books are all in very good condition. This is a remarkably difficult set to get.

The English first edition is surprisingly difficult to find. If scarcity alone dictated value this would be priced at several hundred dollars.

At last, the first publication of the first Yoknapatawpha story! Which made it through one printing before Random House gave up on it too. Is it really that bad a book?

The Franklin Library issues those pretty leather-bound books that suggest culture without actually delivering it. But in two instances the Franklin Library edition is the true first edition of a Faulkner title, predating the "regular" edition. If you want the Uncollected first this is it. And it is a particularly pretty edition.

A hardbound facsimile of the original book plus a softbound Biographical Background by Carvel Collins in a cloth-covered box.

The limitation page of this first and only book publication of the complete text of an early Faulkner story mentions 200 numbered copies and 26 lettered copies. It appears that more than 226 copies were produced, some of which were neither numbered nor lettered. How many of these undefined copies exist is not known, but it likely is not many. These probably were not intended to make it out to the public, but some did.

This book pairs Faulkner's words with Guirard's color nature photography. How did this Louisiana photographer secure the rights to this material for his vanity press effort? - the Faulkner estate has been tight-fisted about republication. And then there's the confusing title. One of the more more enigmatic Faulkner releases.

Most pretty books are little more than pretty. The Easton Press and Heritage Press, to name but two, make books that look nice on a shelf but otherwise have little reason to exist. The Limited Editions Club, on the other hand, has set standards no other press has been able to meet over such a long period. Each of their books contains original work hand-produced for the volume by a leading illustrator of the day, and the work is actually signed by the illustrator. The edition is also signed by the author when possible. The books are printed on fine paper and bound at least in part with fine leather. A Limited Editions Club volume is more than just pretty.

Hunting Stories contains "The Old People" and the short version of "The Bear." The book is obviously not signed by Faulkner. It is signed by artist Neil Welliver, who has contributed two hand-produced color etchings. A very handsome book!

What I said above about the Limited Editions Club issue is even more apt for this deluxe edition from the University of South Carolina Press. Bound in cloth with leather spine; printed on archival felt paper; signed by artist Boyd Saunders; does not just include 12" by 16" plates, but a loose signed lithograph as well. And the cloth-covered clamshell-case is made especially for this volume. This publication seems very likely to become highly valued.

This copy is in fine condition. The case is dirty on the back.

I have heard defenses of Faulkner novels I consider almost unreadable and Faulkner poetry that even poets find leaden, on the theory that everything Faulkner wrote is instructive in some way. I don't necessarily disagree, I do question the sincerity when it stops short of a large body of work penned by Faulkner over a long period of time. Yes, much of the work Faulkner did for the screen was redone by others, but shouldn't Faulkner's influence still be present and instructive? The "who knows what is Faulkner's" argument does not explain the neglect of the screenplays and story ideas that are unquestionably Faulkner's. One seriously believing that Faulkner never wrote a wrong word should be familiar with the material in the volumes immediately above.

This volume contains the first book publication of several pieces by Faulkner, as well as good looks at works not much looked at. A valuable miscellany.

The first anthology containing Faulkner material. If one thinks about this too much Faulkner's inclusion makes no sense. At the time of this publication Faulkner had yet to publish a novel, a story that was more than a sketch, anything of any kind that had attracted any noticeable attention whatsoever from any critic anywhere. The complete record of Faulkner publications to an audience wider than University of Mississippi students through the end of 1925 is the poem "L'Apres-Midi D'un Faune" in The New Republic in 1919; a poem in a 1922 issue of the New Orleans monthly The Double Dealer; and six pieces of no particular distinction in three 1925 issues of The Double Dealer. One would be tempted to conclude that published poetry was in short supply and the editor took what could be found, but the lengthy List of Poems Published at the end of the volume gives the lie to that theory. What was it about Faulkner or these 100 lines that interested Mr. Braithwaite? We may never know. But if where one starts has significance - and I feel it does - this is it, and the "how did it happen" no longer matters, the rest, as they say, is history.

One of the first anthologies containing Faulkner prose, and this one contains a story not previously published - the true first edition of "Ad Astra."

Though Faulkner would assemble a volume of poetry in 1933 it was obvious before that, even to him, that he would not make his name that way. But he was a Mississippian who had published poetry, and so it made sense to include him in the anthology of Mississippi Verse. The earlier Anthology of Younger Poets is harder to understand. At the time that it was published Faulkner had but one volume of poetry, and it is safe to say that even in the 1930s few people had read it or even knew of its existence. Contempo did nothing to expand (create would be a better word) his reputation as a poet. I could understand trying to cash in on Faulkner's growing notoriety as a storyteller, but Centaur Press made no attempt to highlight the author's name. Faulkner was willing to sell anything anyone wanted to buy; the question is why The Centaur Press had been willing to buy.

Even as early as 1934 a Faulkner bibliography stated that his first published story was "A Rose For Emily." This mistake would be repeated in bibliographies for the next 25 years. Not until 1962 when Carvel Collins compiled Faulkner's University of Mississippi pieces (published in this country as Early Prose and Poetry, item 1-41 above) did the public become aware that Faulkner's first published story predated "Emily" by 11 years. Did Collins' inclusion of "Landing in Luck" make the story "collected" so that it no longer qualified for inclusion in Uncollected Stories (item 1-47); or had the story again been forgotten when Joseph Blotner was assembling his comprehensive anthology in 1979? Whatever the reason, this 1994 anthology is but the second time Faulkner's first published prose has been available to the general public; and with Collins' book itself out of print this is now the only way Faulkner's first story can be purchased.

This book also includes first works by other Southern greats Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, Flannery O'Connor and Alice Walker, as well as many other 20th century Americans. A fabulous way to see how different writers compared at the same stage of their careers.

We think of Faulkner as a writer not likely to appeal to the masses, and yet several of his books were available through the Book of the Month Club. In some cases explanations can be deduced: Collected Stories and The Faulkner Reader are good introductions to a famous author people might not have read; A Fable won major awards; The Wishing Tree gained renown as a previously unknown children's story by an author thought not to have written any. It would be tempting to say that the BOTMC was inspired to carry The Reivers by the movie, but the book club issue was shortly after the book's first publication and the movie was not until 1969. This title can be explained only by Faulkner's death which is no explanation at all since the masses who had ignored Faulkner in life were not likely to jump on his bandwagon just because it had stopped rolling.

Book clubs at least have some percentage of literate readers justifying the occassional highbrow release. Reader's Digest caters exclusively to those who like their fiction pre-chewed and easily digested. BOTMC releases could create the public interest leading to the RD interest but it never had before with Faulkner. And this isn't even a condensation of The Reivers but a condensation of an excerpt that had previously appeared in The Saturday Evening Post magazine. Bizarre!

But if this text offers no food for thought to a Faulkner fan the artifact offers much. What lead to Reader's Digest's interest in Faulkner in 1963? Is there any significance to the five other selections in the volume? Why did RD choose to publish just an excerpt, not the whole novel? Why did this condensed story appear just in this book, not in the magazine? I have this volume in my collection and every once in a while I look at it and wonder.

Speaking of bizarre anthologies I must comment on Great American Short Stories published by Gallery Books (1990). No editor is identified and had I been responsible for this I'd wish to remain anonymous also. In a brief biographical paragraph Faulkner is identified as having been born in New Albany, Missouri and moving to Oxford, Missouri. Faulkner is credited with having written eight novels and four short story collections between 1929-1942 "about the Compson family of Jefferson." "That Evening Sun" [Technically the correct title. Though first published as "That Evening Sun Go Down" the title was abbreviated when it was included in These 13. Gallery uses the Collected Stories version, not the original story that had appeared in American Mercury. One wishes that that information had been included in the introduction accompanying the story and not buried in the fine print of Acknowledgments at the back of the volume.] is described as a tale of the Compsons "preceding the major novels," establishing this editor as perhaps unique in rejecting both The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying as substantive. This may be the gold standard for critical ineptitude.