50 Fun Facts About William Faulkner

In which Mississippi town was Faulkner born in 1897?

The family moved to Oxford in 1902 when he was four, and he lived there most of his life.

Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County is a stand-in for which real Mississippi county?

He called it his apocryphal county; its seat, Jefferson, is a renamed Oxford.

In what year was Faulkner awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature?

It was actually presented at the 1950 banquet alongside Bertrand Russell's prize.

Which two Faulkner novels won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction?

He is one of only four authors to win the fiction Pulitzer more than once.

How did William Clark Falkner, Faulkner's great-grandfather and a Confederate colonel, die?

He had been tried and acquitted twice on murder charges himself.

Faulkner never graduated from high school. Which grades did he repeat?

He had skipped second grade but grew withdrawn and truant.

Which older Oxford friend with Yale and Ole Miss degrees mentored the teenage Faulkner?

Through him Faulkner met Robert Frost and Ezra Pound on a 1918 trip to Yale.

Which service did Faulkner join in 1918, using a forged letter of reference?

He trained in Toronto, never flew, and came home telling false war stories with a faked wound.

How did the family name Falkner acquire its 'u'?

Asked if he wanted it corrected, he supposedly said 'Either way suits me.'

What grade did Faulkner receive in English at the University of Mississippi?

He joined Sigma Alpha Epsilon, skipped classes and dropped out after three semesters.

From which job did Faulkner resign, refusing to be at the beck and call of anyone with two cents?

He had been the Ole Miss postmaster.

In which city did Faulkner write his first novel, Soldiers' Pay, in 1925?

He shared a French Quarter apartment with artist William Spratling.

Which established writer helped get Faulkner's first two novels published?

Faulkner and Spratling later parodied him in Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles.

Faulkner's first Yoknapatawpha novel was published in 1929, heavily cut, under what title?

His original title Flags in the Dust was restored in a 1973 edition.

From which Shakespeare play does the title The Sound and the Fury come?

It is from the tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Which family is at the centre of The Sound and the Fury?

The novel follows Quentin, Benjy, Jason and Caddy over mostly a single weekend in 1928.

Whose perspective opens The Sound and the Fury?

Benjy Compson is intellectually disabled, and the section jumps through time without warning.

How did The Sound and the Fury begin life?

Faulkner said he shut the door on all publishers and thought: Now I can write.

Where was Faulkner working night shifts when he began As I Lay Dying in 1929?

It was published in 1930 and entered the public domain in 2026.

How many different narrators tell As I Lay Dying?

They speak across 59 chapters, one of them famously just five words long.

In As I Lay Dying, which child famously declares that his mother is a fish?

The Bundrens carry Addie's coffin by wagon to bury her in Jefferson.

From which epic does the title As I Lay Dying come?

Agamemnon speaks the words in Hades in Homer's poem.

Which 1931 Temple Drake novel was Faulkner's commercial breakthrough, one he supposedly called a potboiler?

It inspired No Orchids for Miss Blandish and two film adaptations.

What did Faulkner name the house he bought in 1930 and lived in until his death?

He named it after the rowan of Scotland and the live oak, though neither grows on the property.

What did Faulkner write directly on the walls of his office at home?

The house has been owned by the University of Mississippi since 1972 and is open to the public.

Which studio hired Faulkner as a screenwriter in 1932, prompting his move to Culver City?

He arrived hoping to write Mickey Mouse cartoons, not realising Disney made them.

Which director became Faulkner's friend and frequent Hollywood collaborator?

They bonded over drinking and hunting, and Hawks's brother became Faulkner's agent.

To Have and Have Not, adapted by Faulkner from a Hemingway novel, is unique for what reason?

It was Lauren Bacall's first film with Humphrey Bogart.

Which Raymond Chandler novel did Faulkner help adapt for the screen?

Bogart and Bacall starred again.

At which Hollywood restaurant was Faulkner said to go behind the bar to mix his own mint juleps?

He lived a vagrant hotel life, including stints at the Garden of Allah.

A Fable, published in 1954, merged the Passion of Christ with what?

The Pulitzer jury had chosen another book, but the board overrode them to reward Faulkner.

Whose 1946 anthology, The Portable Faulkner, revived Faulkner's reputation?

Three years later he had the Nobel Prize.

How did Faulkner's 17-year-old daughter learn that he had won the Nobel Prize?

He detested the fame and gave part of the money to a fund for new writers.

Which institution made Faulkner its first Writer-in-Residence in 1957?

He returned to Charlottesville for a second stint in 1958.

What is the subject of The Reivers, Faulkner's final novel?

It was published a month before his death and filmed with Steve McQueen.

What accident preceded Faulkner's fatal heart attack in July 1962?

The fall led to thrombosis; he died at Wright's Sanatorium in Byhalia aged 64.

What did Faulkner tell readers who could not understand his writing after two or three readings?

He also advised young writers to take up surgery or bricklaying if they were interested in technique.

Which novel did Faulkner say he read every year, as some people read the Bible?

He also listed the Old Testament, Dickens, Conrad, Balzac and Dostoyevsky as old friends.

Which three novels make up the Snopes trilogy?

Flem Snopes and his family insinuate themselves into the town of Jefferson.

Which Faulkner novel did the 1983 Guinness Book credit with literature's longest sentence, at 1,288 words?

It is in Chapter 6 and begins 'Just exactly like Father'.

Who is the plantation owner whose rise and fall is told in Faulkner's 1936 novel with a biblical title?

Quentin Compson tells the story to his Harvard roommate Shreve.

From which language do the two words that make up the name of Faulkner's fictional county come?

Faulkner said the compound means water flows slow through flat land.

Which three later Faulkner novels are NOT set in his fictional county?

Every other novel from Sartoris onward, and over 50 stories, take place there.

A Rose for Emily was Faulkner's first story in a national magazine. Which one?

It appeared on 30 April 1930 and drew little attention at first.

Light in August opens with the journey of which pregnant young woman from Alabama?

The other strand follows Joe Christmas, a man who passes as white.

Faulkner's 1956 Harper's essay opposed school segregation but urged civil rights activists to do what?

James Baldwin sharply criticised his belief in a middle ground.

Which novelist called Faulkner 'the greatest artist the South has produced'?

Ellison also said no one in American fiction had done so much to explore Black personae.

Which French writer made a stage adaptation of Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun?

Sartre, for his part, declared that 'for young people in France, Faulkner is a god'.

Go Down, Moses is dedicated 'To Mammy', Caroline Barr. What was her background?

The dedication praises a fidelity 'without stint or calculation'; the title itself comes from an African American spiritual.

The US Postal Service honoured Faulkner with a stamp of what value on August 3, 1987?

Fitting, given his famous resignation rant about scoundrels with 'two cents to invest in a postage stamp'.