William Faulkner

In 1918, Faulkner’s surname went from “Falkner” to Faulkner. According to one story, a careless typesetter simply made an error. When the misprint appeared on the title page of his first book, Faulkner was asked whether he wanted the change. He supposedly replied, “Either way suits me.”

In adolescence, Faulkner began writing poetry almost exclusively. He did not write his first novel until 1925. His literary influences are deep and wide. He once stated that he modeled his early writing on the Romantic era in late 18th- and early 19th-century England. He attended the University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss”) in Oxford, enrolling in 1919, going three semesters before dropping out in November 1920.

William was able to attend classes at the university because his father had a job there as a business manager. He skipped classes often and received a “D” grade in English. However, some of his poems were published in campus publications.

Although Faulkner is identified with Mississippi, he was residing in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1925 when he wrote his first novel, Soldiers’ Pay. After being directly influenced by Sherwood Anderson, he made his first attempt at fiction writing. Anderson assisted in the publication of Soldiers’ Pay and Mosquitoes, Faulkner’s second novel, set in New Orleans, by recommending them to his publisher.

The miniature house at 624 Pirate’s Alley, just around the corner from St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans, is now the site of Faulkner House Books, where it also serves as the headquarters of the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society.

During the summer of 1927, Faulkner wrote his first novel set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, titled Flags in the Dust. This novel drew heavily on the traditions and history of the South, in which Faulkner had been engrossed in his youth. He was extremely proud of the novel upon its completion and he believed it to be a significant step up from his previous two novels. However, when submitted for publication, it was rejected by the publishers Boni & Liveright. Faulkner was devastated by this rejection, but he eventually allowed his literary agent, Ben Wasson, to significantly edit the text, and the novel was published in 1929 as Sartoris. (The original version was issued as Flags in the Dust in 1973.)

In the autumn of 1928, just after his 31st birthday, he began working on The Sound and the Fury. He started by writing three short stories about a group of children with the last name Compson, but soon began to feel that the characters he had created might be better suited for a full-length novel. Perhaps as a result of disappointment in the initial rejection of Flags in the Dust, Faulkner had now become indifferent to his publishers and wrote this novel in a much more experimental style. In describing the writing process for this work, Faulkner would later say, “One day I seemed to shut the door between me and all publisher’s addresses and book lists. I said to myself, ‘Now I can write.'” After its completion, Faulkner insisted that Ben Wasson not do any editing or add any punctuation for clarity.

In 1929, Faulkner married Estelle Oldham, Andrew Kuhn serving as best man at the wedding. Estelle brought with her two children from her previous marriage to Cornell Franklin and Faulkner hoped to support his new family as a writer. Faulkner and Estelle later had a daughter, Jill, in 1933. He began writing As I Lay Dying in 1929 while working night shifts at the University of Mississippi Power House. The novel would be published in 1930. Beginning in 1930, Faulkner sent out some of his short stories to various national magazines. Several of his stories were published, which brought him enough income to buy a house in Oxford for his family to inhabit, which he named Rowan Oak. He made money on his 1931 novel, Sanctuary, which was widely reviewed and read (but widely disliked for its perceived criticism of the South).

By 1932, Faulkner was in need of money. He asked Wasson to sell the serialization rights for his newly completed novel, Light in August, to a magazine for $5,000, but none accepted the offer. Then MGM Studios offered Faulkner work as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Faulkner was not an avid movie goer and had reservations about working in the movie industry. As André Bleikasten comments, he “was in dire need of money and had no idea how to get it…So he went to Hollywood.” It has been noted that authors like Faulkner were not always hired for their writing prowess but “to enhance the prestige of the …writers who hired them.”He arrived in Culver City, California, in May 1932. The job would begin a sporadic relationship with moviemaking and with California, which was difficult but he endured in order to earn “a consistent salary that would support his family back home.” As Stefan Solomon observes, Faulkner was highly critical of what he found in Hollywood, and he wrote letters that were “scathing in tone, painting a miserable portrait of a literary artist imprisoned in a cultural Babylon.” Many scholars have brought attention to the dilemma he experienced, and that the predicament had caused him serious unhappiness. In Hollywood he worked with director Howard Hawks, with whom he quickly developed a friendship, as they both enjoyed drinking and hunting. Howard Hawks’ brother, William Hawks, became Faulkner’s Hollywood agent. Faulkner would continue to find reliable work as a screenwriter from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Faulkner served as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville from February to June 1957 and again in 1958.