Books

First edition, first printing, of the author's favourite of his own works: "it's a real son-of-a-bitch... This one's the greatest I'll ever write" (quoted in Churchwell). This is Faulkner's fourth novel and the second set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha Country, Mississippi. Faulkner's first Yoknapatawpha story, Flags in the Dust, was initially turned down by his publishers and only published after heavy editing as Sartoris (1928). Out of this frustration came The Sound and the Fury: "I continued to shop [Sartoris] about for three years with a stubborn and fading hope, perhaps to justify the time which I had spent writing it. This hope died slowly, though it didn't hurt at all. One day I seemed to shut a door between me and all publishers' addresses and book lists. I said to myself, Now I can write. Now I can make myself a vase like that which the old Roman kept at his bedside and wore the rim slowly away with kissing it. So I, who had never had a sister and was fated to lose my daughter in infancy, set out to make myself a beautiful and tragic little girl" (Faulkner). Octavo. Original white quarter cloth, spine lettered in black, black and white patterned paper boards and endpapers, top edge blue. Binding toned, extremities lightly worn, front inner hinge discreetly stabilized, traces of bookplate removal on front pastedown. A very good copy. Sarah Churchwell, "Rereading The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner", The Guardian, 20 July 2012. William Faulkner, "An Introduction for The Sound and the Fury", The Southern Review, 1972, pp. 705-10.

The Sound and the Fury is a novel by the American author William Faulkner. It employs a number of narrative styles, including stream of consciousness. Published in 1929, the novel was Faulkner's fourth and is now considered to be one of the greatest novels in American literature. The book primarily focuses on the Compson family and their lives in Mississippi during the early 20th century, touching on themes of time, race, and the decline of the Southern aristocracy.