William Faulkner

Introduction & Top Questions
Youth and early writings
The major novels
Later life and works
Legacy

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images

William Faulkner, photograph by Carl Van Vechten, c. 1954

At a Glance

William Faulkner summary

Quizzes

Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry

A Study of Poetry

4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul

Famous Poets and Poetic Form

Ernest Hemingway at the Finca Vigia, San Francisco de Paula, Cuba, 1953. Ernest Hemingway American novelist and short-story writer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.

Profiles of Famous Writers

Writers’ Retreats

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:

Poetry: First Lines

Related Questions

Did William Faulkner serve in combat during World War I?
How did Dean Faulkner’s death affect William Faulkner’s life?
How did Lafayette County, Mississippi, inspire Yoknapatawpha County?
How did Sartoris introduce Yoknapatawpha County?
How did William Faulkner use Southern Gothic elements in his fiction?
How did William Faulkner’s great-grandfather William Clark Falkner influence his family history?
How did William Faulkner’s time in New Orleans affect his early career?
How do Go Down, Moses and Intruder in the Dust address racial injustice?
How does As I Lay Dying use multiple narrators?
How does Dilsey provide a different perspective on the Compson family in The Sound and the Fury?
How does Quentin Compson connect Absalom, Absalom! to the history of the South?
How does Soldiers’ Pay portray soldiers returning from World War I?
How does racism shape Thomas Sutpen’s downfall in Absalom, Absalom!?
How does stream-of-consciousness narration work in William Faulkner’s novels?
How has William Faulkner influenced later writers around the world?
What biblical story inspired the title Absalom, Absalom!?
What caused William Faulkner’s death?
What did William Faulkner do after returning from Canada in 1918?
What happened to the Compson family in The Sound and the Fury?
What is the Snopes trilogy by William Faulkner?
What major themes about race and identity appear in Light in August?
What was William Faulkner’s first novel?
When and where was William Faulkner born?
When did William Faulkner buy Rowan Oak in Oxford, Mississippi?
When did William Faulkner die?
When was William Faulkner’s poetry collection The Marble Faun published?
Which William Faulkner novels are considered his most famous works?
Which book was William Faulkner’s first published work?
Which character says “My mother is a fish” in As I Lay Dying?
Which films did William Faulkner help write?
Which members of the Compson family narrate The Sound and the Fury?
Who are the members of the Bundren family in As I Lay Dying?
Who was Phil Stone and how did he support William Faulkner’s early writing?
Who were William Faulkner’s parents?
Why did Oxford, Mississippi, matter so much to William Faulkner’s writing?
Why did William Faulkner join the Royal Air Force in 1918?
Why did William Faulkner leave high school without graduating?
Why did William Faulkner receive the Nobel Prize in Literature?
Why did William Faulkner resign from his job at the University of Mississippi post office?
Why did William Faulkner want different colors of type in The Sound and the Fury?
Why did William Faulkner work as a Hollywood screenwriter?
Why did William Faulkner write Mosquitoes?
Why does Absalom, Absalom! have several conflicting narrators?
Why is Rowan Oak important in William Faulkner’s life and work?
Why is The Sound and the Fury difficult for many readers?
What is William Faulkner known for?
Where is William Faulkner from?
What is William Faulkner’s style of writing like?
Was there a feud between William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway?
What is Upton Sinclair best known for?
What was Upton Sinclair’s early life like?
How did The Jungle impact society?
What themes does Ian McEwan explore in his novels?
What is John Irving’s most famous book?
What are common themes in John Irving’s works?

Literature Novels & Short Stories Novelists A-K

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External Websites

NPR - William Faulkner Makes Us Wonder: What's So Great About Poetry, Anyhow?
Mississippi History Now - A Vast and Enduring Monument: William FaulknerÂ’s Literary Reputation
PBS - MPB Classics - William Faulkner: A Life on Paper (1979)
UF Law Scholarship Repository - William Faulkner, Legal Commentator: Humanity and Endurance in Hollywood's Yoknapatawpha (PDF)
ABC listen - Radio National - Faulkner audio online
The Pulitzer Prize - The Many Guises of William Faulkner
BBC Sounds - William Faulkner
Amercian Society of Authors and Writers - Biography of William Faulkner
The Nobel Prize - Biography of William Faulkner
64 Parishes - William Faulkner
Poetry Foundation - Biography of William Faulkner

Britannica Websites

Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

William Faulkner - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

William Faulkner

American author

Also known as: William Cuthbert Falkner, William Cuthbert Faulkner(Show More)

Written by

Michael Millgate

University Professor Emeritus of English, University of Toronto. Author of The Achievement of William Faulkner; Thomas Hardy: A Biography.

Michael Millgate

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Oct. 31, 2026 •History

William Faulkner (born September 25, 1897, New Albany, Mississippi, U.S.—died July 6, 1962, Byhalia, Mississippi) was an American novelist and short-story writer who was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature. A masterful stylist and mythmaker, Faulkner combined stream-of-consciousness writing with rich social history, setting many of his novels in the fictional Southern community of Yoknapatawpha County. His notable works include The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), and Absalom, Absalom!...

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