It is difficult to say 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.” |
Books
for sale at
![]()
 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
 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 |
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. |
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. Years are of the first
publication in book form.
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