William Faulkner : Novels 1942-1954 : Go Down, Moses / Intruder in the Dust / Requiem for a Nun / A Fable (Library of America)

About this book

The years 1942 to 1954 saw William Faulkners rise to literary celebritysought after by Hollywood lionized by the critics awarded a Nobel Prize in 1950 and the Pulitzer and National Book Award for 1954. But despite his success he was plagued by depression and alcohol and haunted by a sense that he had more to achieveand a finite amount of time and energy to achieve it. This Library of America volume collects the novels written during this crucial period; defying the odds Faulkner continued to break new ground in American fiction. He delved deeper into themes of race and religion and furthered his experiments with fictional structure and narrative voice. These newly restored texts based on Faulkners manuscripts typescripts and proof sheets are free of the changes introduced by the original editors and are faithful to the authors intentions. Go Down Moses (1942) is a haunting novel made up of seven related stories that explore the intertwined lives of black white and Indian inhabitants of Yoknapatawpha County. It includes The Bear one of the most famous works in all American fiction with its evocation of the wilderness the big woods bigger and older than any recorded document. Characters from Go Down Moses reappear in Intruder in the Dust (1948). Part detective novel part morality tale it is a compassionate story of a black man on trial and the growing moral awareness of a southern white boy. Requiem for a Nun (1951) is a sequel to Sanctuary. With an unusual structure combining novel and play it tells the fate of the passionate haunted Temple Drake and the murder case through which she achieves a tortured redemption. Prose interludes condense millennia of local history into a swirling counterpoint. In A Fable (1954) a recasting of the Christ story set during World War I Faulkner wanted to try to tell what I had found in my lifetime of truth in some important way before I had to put the pen down and die. The novel which earned a Pulitzer Prize is both an anguished spiritual parable and a drama of mutiny betrayal and violence in the barracks and on the battlefields. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nations literary heritage by publishing and keeping permanently in print Americas best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date authoritative editions that average 1 000 pages in length feature cloth covers sewn bindings and ribbon markers and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.