William Faulkner A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work (Literary A to Z Series)

Alphabetically-arranged entries provide information about Faulkner's life and work, covering his novels, short fiction, poetry, essays, reviews, speeches, screenplays, letters, and his family, friends, and associates.

From Abe, a character in Sartoris, to Zsettlani, a term used to identify a group of soldiers in A Fable, this volume provides both the literary scholar and the general reader with more than 1,500 cross-referenced, alphabetically arranged entries. Each entry varies in length from a few sentences, like Sol (another Sartoris character), to three or more pages for The Unvanquished, a novel in the Yoknapatawpha County cycle. Entries encompass a wide range of topics relating to Faulkner's life and work. They include titles, places (historical and fictional), events, ideas, and characters from his writings. Biographical entries cover friends, family, Faulkner biographer Joseph Blotner, and writers such as Ernest Hemingway--whom Faulkner did not hold in high regard.

Following the entries, one finds five extensive appendixes: a chronology of works and adaptations; a list of resources such as library holdings, bibliographies, and conferences; family trees for the Faulkners as well as for fictional families like the Compsons; Faulkner's appendix to The Sound and the Fury; and a time line of Faulkner's life.

A William Faulkner Encyclopedia (Greenwood, 1999) covers some similar as well as some unique topics but, with 400 entries, does not offer the same level of specificity. The most recent addition to the Facts On File Literary A to Z series provides a wealth of information in just one volume and is recommended for public, academic, and high-school libraries where Faulkner is studied at length. RBB
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