William Faulkner Books In Order

Publication Order of Sin and Salvation Books

Publication Order of The Snopes Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

William Faulkner was one of the well known novelists from The United States, who was famous for writing books based on the fiction, southern gothic, and poetry genres. He was a Nobel Prize winner from Oxford, Mississippi. Author Faulkner was known for writing novels, plays, screenplays, short stories, essays, poetry, etc. He is particularly popular for writing the short stories and books set in the fictional region called Yoknapatawpha County, which is based on the Lafayette County in Mississippi where he lived for most his lifetime. Author Faulkner is considered to be one of the highly celebrated authors in the American literature in general and specifically in the Southern literature. Even though a number of his works were published during the 1920s and the 1930s, he was mostly unknown until he received the Nobel Prize for literature in the year 1949. With this achievement, he became the only Nobel winner born in Mississippi. A couple of novels written by Faulkner have received the Pulitzer Prize. Author Faulkner was born as William Cuthbert Falkner on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi, United States. He was the eldest among the 4 children of Maud Butler and Murry Cuthbert Falkner. When author Faulkner was one year old, his family shifted to Ripley, Mississippi. Later, when some differences arose between Faulkner’s grandfather and father regarding the taking up of the family’s railroad business, his family moved to and settled in Oxford. This became the permanent residence of author Faulkner for the remainder of his life.

The main role in the development of the artistic imagination of Faulkner was greatly played by his mother, maternal grandmother, and a black woman named Caroline Barr, who raised him when he was an infant. Faulkner and his brothers were taught to read as well as participate in outdoor activities by the three ladies. They themselves were avid readers, photographers, and painters, which turned out to be helpful for the visual language education of author Faulkner. As a school going kid, he showed excellent progress up to the 4th grade. But later, he became more of a quiet kid, which showed in his poor record in academics and as the days passed, the downfall in his studies continued. In the end, he was never able to complete his graduation after having to repeat the 11th grade. During his boyhood days, author Faulkner used to indulge himself in listening to interesting stories from the elders. Most of them used to about wars. Caroline Barr used to tell him stories related to the Falkner family, the Civil War, and the Ku Klux Klan. At the age of 17, Faulkner met with Philip Stone, who later influenced him a lot to become an author. When Stone read some of the early poetry written by Faulkner, he was greatly impressed by him. He was also one of he first ones to discover his artistic potential and talent. Later, he became his mentor and guided him to establish himself in the field of writing. He also introduced him to some of the popular authors like James Joyce. And with the passage of time, author Faulkner flourished as a writer by writing some excellent books.

When he was a teenager, he used to date Estelle Oldham, the famous daughter of Lida Oldham and Major Lemuel Oldham. However, she was dating some other boys as well at that time and got married to one of them. After ten years, she got divorced and author Faulkner proposed her and eventually married in the year 1929. They had a daughter named Jill. Outside his marriage, Faulkner was known to have a few affairs, one of which was with Meta Carpenter, the secretary of Howard Hawk. This affair was mentioned in one of the Meta’s books titled A Loving Gentleman. Author Faulkner had one more affair with a young and upcoming author named Joan Williams. She also used the relationship as a subject for writing her book titled The Wintering. In the year 1959, Faulkner had met with a serious accident while horse riding and had received serious injuries. He fell from a horse again in the year 1962 and suffered injuries. Consequently, author Faulkner died because of a thrombosis related heart attack in the same year. He was buried at the St. Peter’s Cemetery, Oxford.

One of the popular novel series written by William Faulkner is known as ‘The Snopes Trilogy’. The books of this series were released between the years 1940 and 1959. One of the books in this series is titled as ‘The Hamlet’. The Vintage International publication released the book in the year 1991 after it was first published in 1940. Author Faulkner has set the plot in Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional town in Mississippi. The main character introduced in the plot include Will Warner, Ab Snopes, and Fem Snopes. The story shows an ironic tale of a classical tragedy of the Snopes family during the aftermath of the war. The advent and rise of the members of the Snopes family are depicted by author Faulkner. They are shown as living in a small town called Frenchman’s Bend, which is built around the ruins of a stately plantation. One of the family members is Flem Snopes, who is energetic, wily, and seems to have shady origins. He begins to dominate the town as well as the people with the help of his guile and cunning.

The next book written by author Faulkner in the series is titled as ‘The Town’. It was also published by the Vintage Books, which released it in 1961 after it was originally published in the year 1940. Once again, the story is set in the Yoknapatawpha County and depicts the life story of Flem Snopes. The book appears to be completely self contained as it described the ruthless struggle of Flem Snopes to dominate the Jefferson town in Mississippi. It is filled with the rich and typical episodes of profundity and humor as seen typically in the writings of author Faulkner. Ludicrousness and sarcasm are spread all over the plot. Author Faulkner has kept the ending of the book as dark, but then too it appears very much perfect. The description of Euly Varner in the form of voluptuous and sexy Mrs. Flem Snopes was highly appreciated by the critics. The unique writing style of author Faulkner shows that he had not tried to make the readers understand the story directly through the words. In fact, he has set up the plot in such a way that they tend to make out their own deductions and proceed ahead. This helped the novel to become very much successful and liked by one and all.