Thinking of Home: William Faulkner's Letters to His Mother and Father, 1918-1925
"How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home," says Darl Bundren in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. How much Faulkner himself is speaking may be suggested by this moving collection of nearly 150 letters. Written during his twenties, these letters describe Faulkner's first encounters with the North ("...I made my first subway trip yesterday. The experience showed me that we are not descended from monkeys, as some say, but from lice."); his brief World War I...
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"What a pleasure! . . . Essential for understanding Faulkner, and a good read for everybody." —Noel PolkPublishers WeeklyThis collection of previously unpublished letters, which Faulkner wrote to his parents when in his early 20s, covers the novelist's first travels to New Haven, New York City, Paris and New Orleans as well as a 1918 stint in the Royal Air Force. The correspondence, edited by Faulkner scholar Watson ( The Snopes Dilemma ), documents the young writer's yearning for his home in Oxford, Miss., even as he took pleasure in his widening horizons, commenting in chatty anecdotes on new sights, foods and adventures. The letters also show his constant casual use of ethnic and racial slurs when describing the people he met and observed. Faulkner aficionados and scholars will find the accounts of his early attempts to publish short stories and a first novel illuminating. (Jan.)
Acknowledgments9Introduction11August 191215April to June 191819July to December 191845October to December 1921119January to July 1925143October to December 1925193Census211Index225
\ Publishers Weekly\ - Publisher's Weekly\ This collection of previously unpublished letters, which Faulkner wrote to his parents when in his early 20s, covers the novelist's first travels to New Haven, New York City, Paris and New Orleans as well as a 1918 stint in the Royal Air Force. The correspondence, edited by Faulkner scholar Watson ( The Snopes Dilemma ), documents the young writer's yearning for his home in Oxford, Miss., even as he took pleasure in his widening horizons, commenting in chatty anecdotes on new sights, foods and adventures. The letters also show his constant casual use of ethnic and racial slurs when describing the people he met and observed. Faulkner aficionados and scholars will find the accounts of his early attempts to publish short stories and a first novel illuminating. (Jan.)\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalReaders will find little trace of the brooding, complex Faulkner of the novels in these folksy letters, written to his parents during early travels. Instead, Faulkner writes to his audience, fashioning interesting anecdotes, comforting chat, and the approved social statements that his rural Southern parents would appreciate. Editor Watson does a masterful job, leaving Faulkner's frequent misspellings and corrections and adding notes and a thorough introduction. Mysteriously missing, though described, are the occasional drawings Faulkner included. These letters are previously unpublished selections drawn from the Humanities Research Center; other letters of this period to his parents have already appeared. For large literary and special collections.-- Shelley Cox, Special Collections, Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale\ \
