Essays, Speeches & Public Letters (Modern Library Classics) [Paperback]

William Faulkner (Author), James B. Meriwether (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Modern Library Classics | Publication Date: February 10, 2004

An essential collection of William Faulkner’s mature nonfiction work, updated, with an abundance of new material.

This unique volume includes Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, a review of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (in which he suggests that Hemingway has found God), and newly collected gems, such as the acerbic essay “On Criticism” and the beguiling “Note on A Fable.” It also contains eloquently opinionated public letters on everything from race relations and the nature of fiction to wild-squirrel hunting on his property. This is the most comprehensive collection of Faulkner’s brilliant non-fiction work, and a rare look into the life of an American master.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Those who care about the work of William Faulkner will be deeply grateful to Meriwether for putting Essays, Speeches & Public Letters together. . . . It will correct many errors [and] increase appreciation and understanding of [Faulkner’s] work.”
—George Garrett

From the Inside Flap

An essential collection of William Faulkner?s mature nonfiction work, updated, with an abundance of new material.

This unique volume includes Faulkner?s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, a review of Hemingway?s The Old Man and the Sea (in which he suggests that Hemingway has found God), and newly collected gems, such as the acerbic essay ?On Criticism? and the beguiling ?Note on A Fable.? It also contains eloquently opinionated public letters on everything from race relations and the nature of fiction to wild-squirrel hunting on his property. This is the most comprehensive collection of Faulkner?s brilliant non-fiction work, and a rare look into the life of an American master.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library; 2 edition (February 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081297137X
• ISBN-13: 978-0812971378
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #230,712 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, William Faulkner was the son of a family proud of their prominent role in the history of the south. He grew up in Oxford, Mississippi, and left high school at fifteen to work in his grandfather's bank.

Rejected by the US military in 1915, he joined the Canadian flyers with the RAF, but was still in training when the war ended. Returning home, he studied at the University of Mississippi and visited Europe briefly in 1925.

His first poem was published in The New Republic in 1919. His first book of verse and early novels followed, but his major work began with the publication of The Sound and the Fury in 1929. As I Lay Dying (1930), Sanctuary (1931), Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom! (1936) and The Wild Palms (1939) are the key works of his great creative period leading up to Intruder in the Dust (1948). During the 1930s, he worked in Hollywood on film scripts, notably The Blue Lamp, co-written with Raymond Chandler.

William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 and the Pulitzer Prize for The Reivers just before his death in July 1962.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The First and Best Approach to Faulkner's Fiction, February 19, 2006

By 

jkibler (Maybinton, South Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essays, Speeches and Public Letters. (Hardcover)

We now have back in print once again Faulkner's own words about crucial topics. This volume provides an excellent means to gauge the writer's thinking and should serve as an aid to good judgement. So much Faulkner criticism rides the pet hobby horses of the time and attempts to make Faulkner into the image of the critic. Reading his own words should be a counterbalance to such self-reflexive, myopic readings. The editor is the most scrupulous and best informed Faulkner scholar living today. It is a blessing that he edited this volume. Anything Faulkner wrote would be of interest, but some of these pieces stand right up there with his fiction. His "On Privacy" must take its place alongside the Nobel speech as one of the most important, prophetic documents of the century. "The American Dream---What Happened to It?" is a wonderful Southern critique of American materialism and false progress. Faulkner's understanding of the "word sounds" to which he saw Americans relegating the words freedom, liberty, and patriotism is as relevant today as when written 50 years ago. The volume has not dated with time. It's only gotten more incisive and as such is staggeringly impressive.