Oxford Faulkner Sites Map   Lafayette County Map   Oxford City Web Site

William Faulkner
in Oxford, Mississippi

      But above all, the courthouse: the center, the focus, the hub; sitting looming in the center of the country's circumference like a single cloud in its ring of horizon, laying its vast shadow to the uttermost rim of horizon; musing, brooding, symbolic and ponderable, tall as cloud, solid as rock, dominating all: protector of the weak, judiciate and curb of the passions and lusts, repository and guardian of the aspirations and hopes...

Unlike many of the other great writers of his day, Faulkner chose to live most of his life in his adopted hometown of Oxford, Mississippi. There, he discovered that his "postage stamp of native soil" could furnish nearly every character, situation, and place that he could dream up for his fiction. The result in his fiction, of course, is Yoknapatawpha County, whose county seat of Jefferson is patterned very closely on Oxford.

I've prepared two maps that offer a glimpse into some of the places that play a role in both the life and the literature of William Faulkner. The Oxford Faulkner Sites map denotes places of interest within the corporate limits of Oxford, while the Lafayette County map looks at the entire county.

Finally, you can find out more about the real-life Oxford at a site developed by the Chamber of Commerce.