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No one knows how many
short stories Faulkner wrote—not because there are undiscovered
stories somewhere out there awaiting discovery (though there
very well might be) but rather because it is difficult to
determine exactly what constitutes a discrete, unique “short
story” by William Faulkner. “Mississippi,”
for example, ostensibly is an essay about his native state
which Faulkner wrote for Holiday magazine, but nevertheless
it contains elements that are clearly fictionalized. The appendix
Faulkner wrote in 1946 for The Sound
and the Fury poses similar problems, since it was
not an original part of the novel, and many editions of the
novel today do not include the appendix. In addition to these
anomalies, Faulkner often extensively revised his stories,
either to improve the sale of a story to a magazine or to
incorporate elements of a story into his novels. Stories such
as “Barn Burning” and “Wash,” for
instance, are well-crafted stories in their own right, but
each was incorporated in substantially revised form in the
novels Absalom, Absalom! and The Hamlet, respectively.
Finally, there are those stories which exist in multiple drafts
or versions, such as “A Return” and “Rose
of Lebanon,” which are different phases of the same
story, or the various versions of “Spotted Horses.”
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Background
Faulkner published short stories throughout
his writing career, well before the first novel, Soldiers’
Pay, was published in 1926. In addition, a number
of stories and other short works of fiction have been published
since his death in 1962—the most recent of which was published
in 1995 in the Oxford American, “Rose
of Lebanon.”
During the height of his career—after
the publication of The Sound and the
Fury in 1929—Faulkner turned to short stories as a
relatively quick, painless means of earning revenue. Because
he had to sell stories to survive financially, his view of
them was often derogatory. He often called short story writing
“boiling the pot,” a mildly derisive term he used
to distinguish it from the more painstaking (and artistically
satisfying) work of writing novels. In a letter to Harrison
Smith in 1932 in which he requests an advance of $250, he
writes, “it’s either this, or put the novel aside
and go whoring again with short stories.”
Nevertheless, Faulkner achieved real
mastery with the short story in any number of instances. Usually,
Faulkner agreed when editors requested changes to his stories,
though there are numerous examples in which Faulkner refused
to capitulate to such demands. In several instances, Faulkner
turned down lucrative offers when to accept would have been
to agree to changes he felt would do harm to the story. What
Faulkner seemed to object to most about short story writing
was the kind of short stories he had to write—commercial,
mass-consumption stories that would sell for high prices in
such magazines as Saturday Evening Post (his favorite
destination for his stories), Scribner’s, and
Harper’s. |
Books
for sale at
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Collected Stories of William Faulkner
Edited by Erroll McDonald
First published: 1950
Vintage Books
Paperback (1995)
ISBN: 0679764038
 Uncollected
Stories of William Faulkner
Edited by Joseph Blotner
First published: 1979
Vintage Books
Paperback (1997)
ISBN: 0375701095
Random House
Hardcover (1983)
ISBN: 0394400445
Big Woods: The Hunting Stories
First published: 1955
Vintage Books
Paperback (1994)
ISBN: 0679752528
 Big
Woods: The Hunting Stories
Illustrated by Brett Smith
Wilderness Adventure Press
Paperback (1996)
ISBN: 1885106408
Knight’s Gambit: Six Mystery Stories
First published: 1949
Vintage Books
Paperback (1987)
ISBN: 0394727290
 Three
Famous Short Novels
First published: 1958
Vintage Books
Paperback (1961)
ISBN: 0394701496
 The
Portable Faulkner
Edited by Malcolm Cowley
First published: 1946
Viking Press
Paperback (1977)
ISBN: 0140150188
 New
Orleans Sketches
Edited by Carvel Collins
First published: 1958
University Press of Mississippi
Paperback (2002)
ISBN: 1578064716
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Short
Story Collections
Faulkner published several collections
of short stories during his career, culminating to some degree
with the publication of Collected
Stories in 1950, though there are other collections
both before and after that date. In addition, at least two
of the novels resemble collections of short stories, and several
of the pieces in both of them were published as short stories
before becoming part of the novels: The
Unvanquished and Go Down,
Moses. Though most critics today consider them unified
novels (and thus expanding the definition of what a novel
is), many of the pieces in these two books can easily be read
as discrete and unified wholes apart from the larger context
of the novel in which they appear.
Faulkner’s short story collections
are as follows:
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How
to cite this page (MLA style):
Padgett,
John B. “William Faulkner’s Short Stories.” William Faulkner on the Web.
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This page was last modified
on
Thursday, June 26, 2008, at 07:45 AM CDT.
Copyright © 1995 – 2008
by John B. Padgett. |
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