Books at Rowan Oak, Home of William Faulkner

This Digital Project will be an online reconstruction of the author’s 1962 library, involving the collaborative work and collections of William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak and the University Libraries’ Department of Archives & Special Collections.

For more information about this collaborative project, please visit the Project's three "About" documents.

Clicking each book's location links to a 360-degree photo of the room at Rowan Oak, captured in 2024. (e.g. Rowan Oak Library Room)

Note: Rowan Oak is a part of the University of Mississippi Museum.The Department of Archives and Special Collections is part of the University of Mississippi Libraries.

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About: Bibliography of Sources Consulted (as of February 2025)

University of Mississippi Libraries. Archives and Special Collections
About: Project Coordinators, Partners, and Acknowledgements

University of Mississippi Libraries. Archives and Special Collections
About: Summary of the Project (as of February 2025)

University of Mississippi Libraries. Archives and Special Collections

A detailed overview of the William Faulkner Digital Library Project.
A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories

Flannery O'Connor

Description: O’Connor, Flannery. A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1955. First edition, first printing.

Project Identifier: faulkner_library_135; faulkner_library_136; faulkner_library_137

Rowan Oak Accession Number:2021.001.0332

Condition: The volume and its accompanying dust jacket are in excellent condition, without annotations, inscriptions, or signatures. However, an insert from the publisher is placed in the endpapers.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room (William Faulkner’s Library: A Catalogue, p. 45).

Current Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: The volume does not contain any annotations, signatures, or inscriptions. However, a publisher’s promotional insert is placed in the book’s endpapers which reads, "With Messrs. Harcourt, Brace, and Company's Compliments."

Notes: William Faulkner’s Library: A Catalogue does not note the presence of the promotional insert and lists the publisher’s name as “Harcourt, Brace & Co."
Classic Tales and Old-Fashioned Stories

Hamilton Wright Mabie and Daniel Edwin Wheeler

Description:. Mabie, Hamilton Wright and Daniel Edwin Wheeler, eds. Classic Tales and Old-Fashioned Stories. New York: The University Society, 1909. Note: Volume III from the twelve-volume set, Young Folks Treasury in Twelve Volumes.

Project Identifier: faulkner_library_031; faulkner_library_032

Rowan Oak Accession Number:2021.001.0195

Condition: The hardback volume is in fair/fragile condition. There is wear to the binding and separation in the gutters of the book.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Current Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: There are no inscriptions or annotations present in the volume.

Notes: The remaining volumes in this series are not present in the current library and were not noted in Joseph Blotner’s William Faulkner’s Library: A Catalogue (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1964).
Dickens’ Works. A Fourteen Volume Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Description: Dickens, Charles. Dickens’ Works. A Fourteen Volume Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens. New York: Published for subscribers only by the Book Collectors League, n.d. Note: This volume includes Great Expectations, The Uncommercial Traveller [British spelling], and Miscellaneous.

Condition: The hardback volume is absent a dust jacket. The spine is fragile, separated from the gutters, and paper foxing is present.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room. Page 65 of Catalogue.

Current Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: There are no inscriptions, annotations, or signatures present in this volume.
El alón rojizo

Emilio de Matteis

Description: Matteis, Emilio de, El alón rojizo. Buenos Aires: Editorial Aldaba, 1960.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library room identified by Joseph Blotner as the “Study”

Current Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions:

Original Spanish inscription: “Al Maestro Premio Nobel/ William Faulkner/ este extraño argumento novelístico/Muy cordialmente,/ Emilio de Matteis Estrada, 2374/Olivos (F?[E/]. C/ Mitre?)/Rep. Argentina/ 25/3/1960.”

English translation: "For the master Nobel Prize winner/William Faulkner/This strange/bizarre novelistic story/Sincerely,/Emilio de Matteis/Estrada, 2374/Olivos (F?[E/]. C/ Mitre?)/Argentinian Republic 25/3/1960."
Elmer Gantry

Sinclair Lewis

Description: Lewis, Sinclair. Elmer Gantry. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927. (Fourth Printing)

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Current Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: Signed by "Major L.E. Oldham" on front flyleaf and inscribed, "To Daddy From Estelle April 17th 1927” on title page.
George Gershwin: A Study in American Music

Isaac Goldberg

Description: Goldberg, Isaac. George Gershwin: A Study in American Music. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1931.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Current Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: Three signatures and annotations appear on the title page of the volume: "To Bill in memory of a good time and Rhapsody in Blue/A.J. [Buttitta]/ Chapel Hill/Oct. 30.; My Pal Bill/Milton Abernethy; William Faulkner/Chapel Hill, N.C./27 Oct. 1931.”
Go Tell It on the Mountain: A Novel

James Baldwin

Description: Baldwin, James. Go Tell It on the Mountain: A Novel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

2025 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: There are no inscriptions or annotations present in the volume.
Life Studies

Robert Lowell

Description: Lowell, Robert. Life Studies. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1959.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Current Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: Signed and inscribed on flyleaf, “For William Faulkner, Our Best Writer, With Gratitude From Robert Lowell.”
Murder Must Advertise: A Detective Story.

Dorothy Sayers

Description: Sayers, Dorothy. Murder Must Advertise: A Detective Story. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1933. Note: Printed in the United States of America By Quinn & Boden Company, Inc., Rahway, N.J. Typography by Robert S. Josephy.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: Although the book does not contain signatures or inscriptions, penciled notes on the book’s end-boards include a series of numbers and phrases, "Gracie Square" and "430 E. 86th St. Regent 4. 0436." The handwriting is not that of William Faulkner.
The End of the Affair

Graham Greene

Description: Greene, Graham. The End of the Affair. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1951. First Edition. Printed in Great Britain at the Windmill Press. Kingswood, Surrey.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: There are no inscriptions present in the volume.
The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757

J. Fenimore Cooper

Description: Cooper, J. Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1885.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: The book contains an inscription written in the same hand: “Murry C. Falkner. Aug. 17^th 1886. With all good wishes bound in love, we wish you many, many happy returns. Your loving parents.” Note: Joseph Blotner indicated that the signature was that of Murry Falkner. However, primary source materials, and the text of the entire inscription, leads one to believe it was written by one of his parents instead.
The Northern Countries

The Foreign Ministries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

Description: The Foreign Ministries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The Northern Countries. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri AB, 1952.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Current Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: There are no inscriptions present in the volume. However, a printed card inserted into the middle of the book reads, “With the compliments of the Official Representatives in the U.S.A. of Denmark Finland Iceland Norway Sweden.”
The Pocket Shakspeare [sic]

William Shakespeare

Description: Shakspeare [sic.], William. The Pocket Shakspeare [sic.]. Philadelphia: David McKay, Publisher, c.1899. Note: Eleven volumes from an original thirteen volume set. Vols. IV and VI are missing.

Condition: The box set is in fair/fragile condition with the individual volume spines showing wear. The outer box is also fragile.

1962 Location: Unknown. The set’s 1962 location was not noted in William Faulkner’s Library: A Catalogue.

Current Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: Volumes IX, X, XI, XIII contain inscriptions to L.E. Oldham, each varies somewhat. Inscription on Volume IX endpapers, "To LE Oldham Oxford Miss From Bessie Mabry Christmas 1905" and, "Address Wiley P. Harris to Law Class about 1869." Inscription on Volume X endpapers, "To LE Oldham from Bessie Mabry Christmas 1905 Oxford, Miss." Erased signature reading, "Victoria Oldham," on Volume XI endpapers. Inscription on Volume XIII front endpapers, "LE Oldham Oxford Miss From Bessie Mabry Xmas 1905." Inscription on Volume XIII back endpapers, "LE Oldham Oxford Miss From Bessie Mabry December 25, 1905" [Note: written upside-down on the page].
The Width of Waters

Alfred Kern

Description: Kern, Alfred. The Width of Waters. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1959.

Project Identifier: faulkner_library_113; faulkner_library_114; faulkner_library_115; faulkner_library_116

Condition: The first edition, first printing hardback volume is in fair/fragile condition. The original dustjacket is absent.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Current Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: There are no inscriptions or annotations present in the volume. However, there is a printed insert included within the first few pages which reads, “Pub Date 1/6/59. THE WIDTH OF WATERS With the Compliments of the Publishers Houghton Mifflin Company Boston Jan 6 1959.”
Will O’ The Mill

Robert Louis Stevenson

Description: Stevenson, Robert Louis. Will O’ The Mill. East Aurora, NY: The Roycroft Shop, 1901.

Condition: The volume is in fragile condition with a suede cover and is without the presence of a dust jacket.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Current Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: There are no inscriptions present, although printed information on the book’s title page reads, "Done Into a Book at the Roycroft Shop, Which is in East Aurora, New York- Press Work Completed on this the Nineteenth Day of November. Anno Domini MCMI."
Youth and Two Other Stories

Joseph Conrad

Description: Conrad, Joseph. Youth and Two Other Stories. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1916.

1962 Location: Rowan Oak Library Room

Annotations/Inscriptions: not applicable.