William Faulkner: A Literary Life

Hardcover, ix + 197 pages, NOT ex-library. Some minor handling wear, contents are fresh, book is clean and bright throughout with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Bright dust jacket shows a couple of tiny staple marks on the front panel, a barcode label on the back. -- "Despite all the biographical studies devoted to William Faulkner, there are still many fundamental contradictions in the way he is perceived. He has been described as a creator of worlds à la Dickens and as one of postmodernism's avatars, as indifferent to the intellectual currents of his time and as profoundly indebted to them, as deeply insightful about issues like race, class, and gender and as someone who merely reflects contemporary anxieties about them. A concise and focused study of Faulkner's literature and life that will help readers sort through the questions raised by his work and by the voluminous response to it." "William Faulkner's career as a novelist is unique. Even as he worked out the continuities of his regional world, creating and populating the imaginary county he called Yoknapatawpha, he was responsible for some of the twentieth century's most startlingly original literary work. Although constantly compared to other novelists, his books helped redefine the genre. His style was distinctive from the beginning, but he put it to the most varied uses imaginable. In this new study, David Rampton defines the contours of an intriguing literary career, arguing that its development is so striking, its stages so marked and its longevity so impressive that it is possible to think of serial Faulkners, each one worth studying for its own sake and as part of a composite portrait." -- Contents: Early Faulkner; Major achievement I; Major achievement II; Two views of history; More experiments with the novel; The Snopes trilogy; Late Faulkner.…