William Faulkner: Collector and Bibliophile

Featured in this case are volumes from William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak Library Rare Book Collection. Selected by curators Bill Griffith and Rachel Hudson, each book reflects an aspect of the author’s life and collecting interests. It is estimated that the Rowan Oak Library contains roughly eighty percent of its original 1962 holdings and is the product of several family members, in addition to Faulkner. Scholar and author, Joseph Blotner chronicled Faulkner’s library soon after the Nobel laureate’s death in July 1962 and published William Faulkner’s Library: A Catalogue. Blotner cataloged roughly twelve hundred volumes from over two dozen countries at that time, although he did not include the entire contents of the home. He surmised that the library constituted the product of six generations, making identification of original owners difficult in some cases. According to the biographer, the author’s “only…reliable sign of esteem for books” was the inclusion of inscriptions: date of acquisition, as well as his signature and location. His literary interests were “varied” and reflected Faulkner’s “regional interests and affinities.”

Featured on this shelf:

• Lie Down in Darkness / William Styron

The Golden Apples, The Invisible Man, and the Last Novel

Eudora Welty presented William Faulkner with the Gold Medal for Fiction during the 1962 American Academy of Arts and Letters observances. However, the two Mississippians first met in the spring of 1949 when they sailed on Sardis Lake on Faulkner’s boat, the Ring Dove. The Rowan Oak Library contains a copy of Welty’s 1949 work, The Golden Apples, featured here. Only a few years later, Faulkner attended the National Book Award ceremony (1953), during which Ralph Ellison received the award for fiction. An admirer of Ellison’s work, Faulkner requested that Random House send a copy of Invisible Man to Rowan Oak, which is showcased here. At only twenty-six years of age, William Styron, wrote Lie Down in Darkness, which, according to the author, was heavily influenced by Faulkner’s work. The featured volume from the Rowan Oak Library was reportedly the last novel William Faulkner read before his death.

Featured on this shelf:

• The Golden Apples / Eudora Welty
• Invisible Man / Ralph Ellison

The Immortal Bard, Miss Havisham, and a Windmill Tilting Knight

Showcased here are several examples of a few of William Faulkner’s favorite authors and volumes from the Rowan Oak library. A “Pocket Shakespeare” set appears centerstage, as the playwright was a source of inspiration to the Mississippi author (look to the title for The Sound and the Fury, among other references, to get a sense of the writer’s esteem). This particular set of the plays features a varied spelling of Shakespeare, without the additional “e.” Nineteenth century British author Charles Dickens was another admired author, with Faulkner often reading his works aloud to his family after dinner at Rowan Oak. This combined set containing Great Expectations/The Uncommercial Traveler could have been one of the volumes read aloud on those evenings! It has been asserted that Faulkner drew inspiration for the character Emily Grierson (A Rose for Emily) from Dickens’ multi-layered “tragic shut-in” Miss Havisham. Another displayed treasure is the two-volume set of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, which Faulkner revered and was a constant source of inspiration, as it was the first form of a modern novel. In Faulkner’s library, ordinarily next to these two volumes, is a wooden bust of the ever-optimistic knight, given to the author when he visited Venezuela as a goodwill ambassador during the Eisenhower administration.

Featured on this shelf:

• Don Quixote / Cervantes
• Dickens' Works / Charles Dickens (volume includes Great Expectations, The Uncommercial Traveller, and Miscellaneous)
• The Portable Shakespeare / William Shakespeare (spelled "Shakspeare" on the box)
• Love in a Dry Season / Shelby Foote
• A Good Man is Hard to Find / Flannery O’Connor

Pulp Fiction and Cryptic Inscriptions

Faulkner’s secretary hutch contains a large collection of well-read pulp fiction from the 1940s and 1950s. Mostly known for his high modernist masterpieces, the author’s attitude towards reading was more capacious than one might expect: “Read, read, read - read everything,” he once said. Paperbacks from this time period, such as the displayed Death on the Nile from his library, are usually extremely fragile, due to the inferior glue binding and highly acidic paper used in construction. Faulkner was extremely fond of detective fiction, such as his copy of the showcased work by Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon. The Mississippi author befriended Hammett at a Random House publishing party in 1931. Faulkner later wrote his own “hard boiled” detective stories with Intruder in the Dust and Knight’s Gambit. Faulkner’s copy of Love in a Dry Season, written by author Shelby Foote, is also displayed. Foote visited Rowan Oak in 1942 and brought his copy of The Hamlet for a signature. The Greenville, Mississippi author later wrote a cryptic inscription to Faulkner on the end pages of his own 1951 novel: “for William Faulkner of Oxford, from Shelby Foote of Greenville Mississippi 29 Aug 51. The debt this time is less pervasive but more explicit- see page 241.” If you have a moment, please consult Foote’s complex novel in the Special Collections rare book collection to uncover the mystery (hint…Faulkner’s name appears in a library)!

Featured on this shelf:

• Death on the Nile / Agatha Christie
• Bookplate: The Modern Library of the World’s Best Books (The Maltese Falcon)

William Faulkner’s Barrister Bookcase: The Material Object and a Library

Faulkner’s paternal grandfather, John Wesley Thompson (J.W.T.) Falkner (note the lack of a “u”), was a Mississippi attorney and businessman. The bookcase featured here was likely inherited by William Faulkner from his grandfather and used in the Rowan Oak Library by the author. The barrister case is a perfect example of a physical object created to house the book as a material presence, capturing the spirit of this year’s exhibition.

Special Collections would like to thank Rowan Oak, its curators, and the University Museum for the loan of these books, as well as their invaluable help with their selection and description.