Thus a given detail in The Mansion can be taken as the authentic version, but by and large the factual details of the story need not match each other exactly. The author’s note at the outset of The Mansion is a kind of credo celebrating his “hopes that his entire life’s work is part of a living literature, and since ‘living’ is motion, and ‘motion’ is change and alteration and therefore the only alternative to motion is unmotion, stasis, death, there will be found discrepancies and contradictions in the thirty-four-year progress of this particular chronicle…”Įven so, Faulkner was perfectly consistent about his aims in the reconciliation of the Snopes material: that consistency should, in fact, work backward from the latest version. Faulkner and his later editors-Saxe Commins for The Town and Albert Erskine for The Mansion-made a serious effort to reduce and to modify, if not to eliminate discrepancies in the individual novels and, indeed, with many other bits and pieces of the Snopes story as it had emerged, early and late, in other novels and in many of the short stories. ![]() There is consistency, to be sure, even though the books were written years apart, interrupted by other books and projects and at otherwise very busy times of his life. Since constant change, the overwhelming and universal energy of change (for the better and for the worse) is an almost obsessive theme in Faulkner’s fiction, the story of the Snopes family, from the Civil War until nearly the here and now, is itself constantly changing. And at the heart of the fictional accounting of Yoknapatawpha County stands this trilogy- The Hamlet (1940), The Town (1957), and The Mansion (1959)-here joined together, as he had always hoped and planned they would be, as one continuous and sequential narrative. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.Īt the living center of the life work of William Faulkner are the novels and stories which deal with Yoknapatawpha County, that imaginary and deeply imagined place, at once based on and derived from his real home country, Lafayette County, Mississippi but nevertheless independent with its own myths and legends, its own long and shadowy history, its diverse populations, its places much like places he had known and yet altogether his own invention. Portions of The Hamlet were previously published as short stories as follows: “Spotted Horses” and “Fool About a Horse” were published in Scribner’s Magazine “The Hound” was published in Harper’s Magazine “Lizards in Jamshyd’s Courtyard” was published in The Saturday Evening Post.Ī portion of The Mansion was published in Mademoiselle under the title “By the People.” The Hamlet, The Mansion, and The Town were all originally published by Random House, Inc. Modern Library and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Copyright © 1957 by The Curtis Publishing Company.Īll rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Copyright renewed 1985 by Jill Faulkner Summers. The Town: Copyright © 1957 by William Faulkner. Copyright renewed 19 by Jill Faulkner Summers. The Mansion: Copyright © 1955, 1959 by William Faulkner. Copyright © 1964 by Estelle Faulkner and Jill Faulkner Summers. Copyright renewed 1964 by Estelle Faulkner and Jill Faulkner Summers. ![]() Copyright 1932 and renewed 1959 by The Curtis Publishing Company. The Hamlet: Copyright 1931 and renewed 1958 by William Faulkner. ![]() Introduction copyright © 1994 by George Garrett “Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatness of our classics.” ![]() “For all his concerns with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man,” noted Ralph Ellison. Finally, The Mansion tells of Mink Snopes, whose archaic sense of honor brings about the downfall of his cousin Flem. The Town, the second novel, records Flem’s ruthless struggle to take over the county seat of Jefferson, Mississippi. The Hamlet, the first book of the series chronicling the advent and rise of the grasping Snopes family in mythical Yoknapatawpha County, is a work that Cleanth Brooks called “one of the richest novels in the Faulkner canon.” It recounts how the wily, cunning Flem Snopes dominates the rural community of Frenchman’s Bend-and claims the voluptuous Eula Varner as his bride. Here, published in a single volume as Faulkner always hoped they would be, are the three novels that comprise the famous Snopes trilogy, a saga that stands as perhaps the greatest feat of Faulkner’s imagination. Genre: antique Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion Faulkner William
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