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The Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner
This invaluable volume contains some of the greatest short fiction by a writer who defined the course of American literature. Its forty-five stories fall into three categories: those not included in Faulkner’s earlier collections; previously unpublished short fiction; and stories that were later expanded into such novels as The Unvanquished , The Hamlet , and Go Down, Moses . The Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner is an essential addition to its author’s canon—as well as a book of some of the most haunting, harrowing, and atmospheric short fiction written in the twentieth century.
736 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
About the author
William Faulkner
934 books9,431 followersWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was a Nobel Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. One of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, his reputation is based mostly on his novels, novellas, and short stories. He was also a published poet and an occasional screenwriter.
The majority of his works are set in his native state of Mississippi. Though his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel." Faulkner has often been cited as one of the most important writers in the history of American literature. Faulkner was influenced by European modernism, and employed stream of consciousness in several of his novels.
The majority of his works are set in his native state of Mississippi. Though his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel." Faulkner has often been cited as one of the most important writers in the history of American literature. Faulkner was influenced by European modernism, and employed stream of consciousness in several of his novels.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
January 21, 2009
even in this collection of stories - many of which were never published, or were left out of collections (hence the strange title) or were massively revised and appeared as long sections of novels - even here, faulkner's genius shines. the way he constructs a story, the rhythms of his lines, the structure of his paragraphs - his characters, his stories, his pacing. the guy had game.
now, to be sure, a lot of people don't like faulkner. they find his stories plodding, his style infuriating, his structure unintelligible. and for them i have some advice: you do not read faulkner like you read other writers. reading his work is like watching an action that is taking place through the trees, in your neighbor's yard. the trees sway a little in the breeze and you see more of the story. they sway back and something new is revealed. but you never see the whole story right out in front of you. some people find this annoying, and that's fine. for me, though, it creates works that i don't feel i've read; it creates works that i feel i've lived.
now, to be sure, a lot of people don't like faulkner. they find his stories plodding, his style infuriating, his structure unintelligible. and for them i have some advice: you do not read faulkner like you read other writers. reading his work is like watching an action that is taking place through the trees, in your neighbor's yard. the trees sway a little in the breeze and you see more of the story. they sway back and something new is revealed. but you never see the whole story right out in front of you. some people find this annoying, and that's fine. for me, though, it creates works that i don't feel i've read; it creates works that i feel i've lived.
May 26, 2022
Cu jumătate dintre texte publicate prin reviste, dar neadunate în volum, iar cealaltă jumătate deloc publicate, antologia e recomandată mai ales celor care-l admiră/apreciază pe Faulkner. Pentru mine, cele mai interesante au fost notele de la final, care oferă detalii despre istoricul povestirilor nepublicate, uneori și motivele refuzurilor folosite de editori. De altfel, textele nepublicate se ridică uneori la același nivel calitativ (și chiar îl depășesc, pe alocuri) cu cele acceptate de editori.
February 16, 2021
William Faulkner is one of those writers I initially shunned and altogether dismissed almost 20 years ago when I first picked up the difficult maze of words that is The Sound and the Fury.
I didn't pick up another Faulkner novel until about 10 years later when I tried reading Absalom! Absalom! Although the first half of the novel was very enjoyable, I found the 2nd half very hard to follow. It wasn't until I read The Unvanquished, Flags in the Dust, Wild Palms and the brilliant Light in August that I realised what a great writer he really was.
At some point I moved onto the Snopes trilogy with its unforgettable characters and drama centered around a small town.
I eventually moved onto his short stories, first The Collected Stories of William Faulkner, and now this volume. Although I don't always like his style of writing, I have to say that he really knows how to tell a story in his own atmospheric manner. He is very subtle and if your attention wanders for a second, you will lose important threads that you will need to put the yarn together, which is what he is asking us, as readers, to do.
In this collection, we have short stories that were either revised later on or expanded into novels such as The Unvanquished and Go Down, Moses. Then there are some stories that had previously been published but heretofore not been in any collection - let's call them 'orphans.' Finally, there are some unpublished stories which had not seen the light of day before this publication. You had to visit one of the Faulkner repositories if you wanted to read them. And there are some real gems.
My favourite stories in this collection were Hog Pawn (featuring the wily and cunning Flem Snopes), Nympholepsy (a beautiful poetic prose piece), Once Aboard the Lugger (about bootlegging and written during Faulkner's stay in New Orleans), and then finally what are probably the 2 best stories in the whole book, Evangeline and A Portrait of Elmer.
What I learned from this book was not only a very interesting way to build a story by gradually releasing clues and letting the reader put the dots together (essentially Faulkner's method) but also how short stories can be lengthened out into novels if the writer thinks there is enough scope and material to work with. For any aspiring writer wishing to write but struggling to write a novel (including myself), I suggest trying this method as a starting point. Faulkner applied this technique in an unusual way in Go Down Moses, when he juxtaposed several short stories seemingly unrelated, except for the one point they all had in common: they're all centred around the same families and family trees.
Finally, what I walked away with was a great admiration for Faulkner, a writer who was wholly committed to his art and the craft of writing. According to the editor of this volume, his biographer Jospeph Blotner, Faulkner would constantly revise his stories until he was happy with them. These stories do not emerge fully formed; like a sculptor, you need to chip away slowly and slowly until the beauty hiding within the stone emerges. Faulkner worked hard at this until what he had on paper reflected as closely as possible the beautiful visions that must have been spinning around in his mind.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in story writing in general, and especially for all Faulkner fans out there. Go get this one. It's a keeper.
I didn't pick up another Faulkner novel until about 10 years later when I tried reading Absalom! Absalom! Although the first half of the novel was very enjoyable, I found the 2nd half very hard to follow. It wasn't until I read The Unvanquished, Flags in the Dust, Wild Palms and the brilliant Light in August that I realised what a great writer he really was.
At some point I moved onto the Snopes trilogy with its unforgettable characters and drama centered around a small town.
I eventually moved onto his short stories, first The Collected Stories of William Faulkner, and now this volume. Although I don't always like his style of writing, I have to say that he really knows how to tell a story in his own atmospheric manner. He is very subtle and if your attention wanders for a second, you will lose important threads that you will need to put the yarn together, which is what he is asking us, as readers, to do.
In this collection, we have short stories that were either revised later on or expanded into novels such as The Unvanquished and Go Down, Moses. Then there are some stories that had previously been published but heretofore not been in any collection - let's call them 'orphans.' Finally, there are some unpublished stories which had not seen the light of day before this publication. You had to visit one of the Faulkner repositories if you wanted to read them. And there are some real gems.
My favourite stories in this collection were Hog Pawn (featuring the wily and cunning Flem Snopes), Nympholepsy (a beautiful poetic prose piece), Once Aboard the Lugger (about bootlegging and written during Faulkner's stay in New Orleans), and then finally what are probably the 2 best stories in the whole book, Evangeline and A Portrait of Elmer.
What I learned from this book was not only a very interesting way to build a story by gradually releasing clues and letting the reader put the dots together (essentially Faulkner's method) but also how short stories can be lengthened out into novels if the writer thinks there is enough scope and material to work with. For any aspiring writer wishing to write but struggling to write a novel (including myself), I suggest trying this method as a starting point. Faulkner applied this technique in an unusual way in Go Down Moses, when he juxtaposed several short stories seemingly unrelated, except for the one point they all had in common: they're all centred around the same families and family trees.
Finally, what I walked away with was a great admiration for Faulkner, a writer who was wholly committed to his art and the craft of writing. According to the editor of this volume, his biographer Jospeph Blotner, Faulkner would constantly revise his stories until he was happy with them. These stories do not emerge fully formed; like a sculptor, you need to chip away slowly and slowly until the beauty hiding within the stone emerges. Faulkner worked hard at this until what he had on paper reflected as closely as possible the beautiful visions that must have been spinning around in his mind.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in story writing in general, and especially for all Faulkner fans out there. Go get this one. It's a keeper.
April 17, 2021
La primera referencia que recuerdo haber tenido de Faulkner es, obviamente, la devoción que se siente por él en "Amanece, que no es poco". A raíz de ello, la curiosidad me llevó a comprar este libro hace más de veinte años, libro que empecé y abandoné aburrido hasta que el año pasado lo recomencé para terminarlo ahora.
No puedo decir que me haya gustado. Reconozco que algunos relatos son francamente buenos pero, en general, el estilo me resulta pesado y aburrido; a Faulkner le toma demasiadas palabras no decir nada.
Por otra parte, aunque su literatura refleje muy bien lo que ha debido ser el sur de los Estados Unidos, la mentalidad de sus habitantes y su orgullo por su pasado secesionista, es muy desconcertante e incómodo leerlo en palabras de quien, sin duda, estuvo en el lado bueno de la situación.
Faulkner narra con orgullo y nostalgia las vivencias y recuerdos de quienes disfrutaban de la riqueza fruto del trabajo de los esclavos que poseían. Incluso cuando los personajes son "basura blanca", son vistos desde el prisma de un blanco de clase alta. En ningún momento se de profundidad a un personaje negro, en ningún momento se plantea pensar qué supone ser esclavo, pertenecer a otra persona, poder ser vendido y separado de los seres queridos, lo que supone ser una propiedad... Tampoco ninguno de los personajes blancos se plantea nunca la moralidad de esa posesión, más bien al contrario: poseer humanos es visto como una obligación, una responsabilidad.
La lectura de estos puntos de vista es tanto más incómoda cuanto que el tono del autor da a entender que ese era también su punto de vista, lo que él consideraba correcto (reconozco que no he investigado la vida del autor para saber si me equivoco).
En resumen: un libro largo y pesado que cuenta poco más allá de añorar y justificar un pasado de clasismo y esclavismo que se adivina que para el autor era algo que recordar con orgullo.
No puedo decir que me haya gustado. Reconozco que algunos relatos son francamente buenos pero, en general, el estilo me resulta pesado y aburrido; a Faulkner le toma demasiadas palabras no decir nada.
Por otra parte, aunque su literatura refleje muy bien lo que ha debido ser el sur de los Estados Unidos, la mentalidad de sus habitantes y su orgullo por su pasado secesionista, es muy desconcertante e incómodo leerlo en palabras de quien, sin duda, estuvo en el lado bueno de la situación.
Faulkner narra con orgullo y nostalgia las vivencias y recuerdos de quienes disfrutaban de la riqueza fruto del trabajo de los esclavos que poseían. Incluso cuando los personajes son "basura blanca", son vistos desde el prisma de un blanco de clase alta. En ningún momento se de profundidad a un personaje negro, en ningún momento se plantea pensar qué supone ser esclavo, pertenecer a otra persona, poder ser vendido y separado de los seres queridos, lo que supone ser una propiedad... Tampoco ninguno de los personajes blancos se plantea nunca la moralidad de esa posesión, más bien al contrario: poseer humanos es visto como una obligación, una responsabilidad.
La lectura de estos puntos de vista es tanto más incómoda cuanto que el tono del autor da a entender que ese era también su punto de vista, lo que él consideraba correcto (reconozco que no he investigado la vida del autor para saber si me equivoco).
En resumen: un libro largo y pesado que cuenta poco más allá de añorar y justificar un pasado de clasismo y esclavismo que se adivina que para el autor era algo que recordar con orgullo.
July 11, 2017
Another excellent collection of Faulkner's short work. The short versions of work eventually reused in his novels is worth the price of admission alone; the sections of uncollected and unpublished stories are the icing on the cake.
January 1, 2023
This hodgepodge collection of some of Faulkner's short fiction is divided into three parts. First, and by far the most important, are those stories that he revised to become parts of later novels: The Unvanquished, ,The Hamlet, Go Down, Moses, Big Woods, and The Mansion. And of those he later incorporated into Go Down, Moses are the most important and the best of the collection.
The second part is comprised of published short stories that Faulkner never included in any of his short story collections. These stories are, for the most part, mediocre, inchoate and contrived. The third part contains stories that have not been published - and not published for a good reason. It is hard to believe that Faulkner could write something this bad.
Overall, this volume is more important for the Faulkner scholar than the general reading public.
The second part is comprised of published short stories that Faulkner never included in any of his short story collections. These stories are, for the most part, mediocre, inchoate and contrived. The third part contains stories that have not been published - and not published for a good reason. It is hard to believe that Faulkner could write something this bad.
Overall, this volume is more important for the Faulkner scholar than the general reading public.
February 24, 2023
Faulkner, to me, is the undisputed king of American fiction. He is master of narration, characterization, dialogue, psychology, mise-en-scene, and apt phrasing. Even those stories at the end of the book that were not published in his lifetime are good, and most of the previously published stories are brilliant. Faulkner needless to say is my favorite American fiction writer, though I have other favorites as well (notably Melville, James, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Welty, and Bellow). The Uncollected Stories takes its place alongside The Collected Stories as two summits of prose fiction.
February 22, 2022
Faulkner gets people. I can see why he became an alcoholic. He was a cynical genius, but you can see the love of humanity in the synicism. Faulkner is just as good a read now as he was in his day with quotes as savvy now as then, a remarkably insightful storyteller. The stories are not painful; they’re just amazing in their ability to covey a loving view of a very flawed world.
Want to read
November 9, 2012A mitad de camino. Faulkner es demasiado, especialmente a esta altura del año!
March 9, 2020
Interesting if you're a Faulkner scholar or someone who wants a glimpse into Faulkner's revision process, but I'm neither of those. Nothing especially new here.
March 29, 2022
The best stories are the ones that became parts of larger novels. Some of the uncollected and unpublished ones are of varying quality but the prose is uniformly excellent.
August 22, 2023
Regarding the GR Reading Challenge - some short stories are available to mark as read while others are not, and this is regardless of the story's length 😐. Regarding stories in large collections such as Faulkner's Collected and Faulkner's Uncollected Short Stories, if they are not available as individual works on GR then I will review them as part of the collection as a whole.
Faulkner's unpublished story "The Big Shot" is a five star read for me. The narrative itself is a solid 3.5 stars, but the seeds of Faulkner's later greatness are so evident that within context of his oeuvre I have to give it ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
Joseph Blotner, the Faulkner family's first authorized biographer, opens the Introduction to this volume as follows:
This book consists of three kinds of stories: those which William Faulkner published but never reprinted in any of his short-story collections, those which he later revised to become parts of later books, and those which have remained until now unpublished. Some of the third group are clearly apprentice work, but some of all three groups display qualities to be found in his best fiction.
Faulkner fans who have already read Sanctuary, Requiem for a Nun, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, and other of his major novels and stories will immediately recognize his most important and recurring themes in this story. Blotner concludes that this story was written during Faulkner's early to mid twenties: "The style suggests that it was written after the stories Faulkner wrote in New Orleans but before more mature writing of the later 1920's such as Sartoris. Elements in the story would appear in several later works. The most familiar character is Popeye...".
Blotner views Dal Martin's daughter Wrennie as a precursor to Temple Drake. Wrennie, like Temple, is a Mississippi socialite because her daddy has a reputation and money. However, unlike Temple's father's esteemed position as a Judge, Wrennie's dad's reputation is that of a "peasant", thug, and corruption artist. So here we have a young Faulkner beginning his exploration, analysis, and exposition of the (un)natural class systems that exist(ed) in the American South! I'm not sure if Martin's motive is for the benefit of himself or his daughter, but much of the narrative is driven by his attempts to get Wrennie invited to the Chickasaw Guards Ball as one of their annual debutantes.
The role of woman, and the role of a woman's physical beauty, are also seen in "The Big Shot". When Sanctuary is published in 1931, Faulkner has her pull out her compact mirror to "fix her face" whenever she is emotionally overwhelmed. In this early story, he is in my opinion beginning to consider the usefulness of cosmetics to a woman's psyche. Examples include: "her little painted face"; "her little vivid shallow face"; "her haunted dumb eyes"; "her vivid discontented face"; and, "behind her little painted mask."
Faulkner's exploration of the complicated procedures of racial and social interactions is also seen in this story.
Anyway the boss came to the door himself. Suddenly he - the boy - looked up and there within touching distance for the first time was the being who had come to symbolise for him the ease and pleasant ways of the earth: idleness, a horse to ride all day long, shoes all the year round. And you can imagine him when the boss spoke: “Don’t you ever come to my front door again. When you come here, you go around to the kitchen door and tell one of the N*s what you want.” That was it, you see. There was a negro servant come to the door behind the boss… the antipathy between them and negroes was an immediate and definite affair, being at once biblical, political, and economic: the three compulsions -... A mystical justification of the need to feel superior to someone somewhere, you see.
The next story in Blotner is "Dull Tale", which he said was a "reworking" of this one. I've spent so much time processing and enjoying "The Big Shot", I'll have to take a pause before delving into that one! 🧡📚
Faulkner's unpublished story "The Big Shot" is a five star read for me. The narrative itself is a solid 3.5 stars, but the seeds of Faulkner's later greatness are so evident that within context of his oeuvre I have to give it ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
Joseph Blotner, the Faulkner family's first authorized biographer, opens the Introduction to this volume as follows:
This book consists of three kinds of stories: those which William Faulkner published but never reprinted in any of his short-story collections, those which he later revised to become parts of later books, and those which have remained until now unpublished. Some of the third group are clearly apprentice work, but some of all three groups display qualities to be found in his best fiction.
Faulkner fans who have already read Sanctuary, Requiem for a Nun, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, and other of his major novels and stories will immediately recognize his most important and recurring themes in this story. Blotner concludes that this story was written during Faulkner's early to mid twenties: "The style suggests that it was written after the stories Faulkner wrote in New Orleans but before more mature writing of the later 1920's such as Sartoris. Elements in the story would appear in several later works. The most familiar character is Popeye...".
Blotner views Dal Martin's daughter Wrennie as a precursor to Temple Drake. Wrennie, like Temple, is a Mississippi socialite because her daddy has a reputation and money. However, unlike Temple's father's esteemed position as a Judge, Wrennie's dad's reputation is that of a "peasant", thug, and corruption artist. So here we have a young Faulkner beginning his exploration, analysis, and exposition of the (un)natural class systems that exist(ed) in the American South! I'm not sure if Martin's motive is for the benefit of himself or his daughter, but much of the narrative is driven by his attempts to get Wrennie invited to the Chickasaw Guards Ball as one of their annual debutantes.
The role of woman, and the role of a woman's physical beauty, are also seen in "The Big Shot". When Sanctuary is published in 1931, Faulkner has her pull out her compact mirror to "fix her face" whenever she is emotionally overwhelmed. In this early story, he is in my opinion beginning to consider the usefulness of cosmetics to a woman's psyche. Examples include: "her little painted face"; "her little vivid shallow face"; "her haunted dumb eyes"; "her vivid discontented face"; and, "behind her little painted mask."
Faulkner's exploration of the complicated procedures of racial and social interactions is also seen in this story.
Anyway the boss came to the door himself. Suddenly he - the boy - looked up and there within touching distance for the first time was the being who had come to symbolise for him the ease and pleasant ways of the earth: idleness, a horse to ride all day long, shoes all the year round. And you can imagine him when the boss spoke: “Don’t you ever come to my front door again. When you come here, you go around to the kitchen door and tell one of the N*s what you want.” That was it, you see. There was a negro servant come to the door behind the boss… the antipathy between them and negroes was an immediate and definite affair, being at once biblical, political, and economic: the three compulsions -... A mystical justification of the need to feel superior to someone somewhere, you see.
The next story in Blotner is "Dull Tale", which he said was a "reworking" of this one. I've spent so much time processing and enjoying "The Big Shot", I'll have to take a pause before delving into that one! 🧡📚
May 12, 2024
Partes *los invictos* y *el villorio* completadas
December 5, 2016
Wildly inconsistent in quality (there is a reason some of these stories were uncollected and/or unpublished), nevertheless, Faulkner's mastery of prose and evocation is here in some superb examples, such as "Miss Zilphia Gant", "Sepulture South: Gaslight", and "Evangeline". The first half of the book is devoted to early version of stories that were reworked into full novels, but there are also stories that simply were never accepted for publication. As such, it is for Faulkner completists such as myself, but certainly worth a look if you have been impressed by a number of his other works.
April 15, 2024
A money grab by Random House. The “Stories later turned into novels” were good if you’ve never read the novels. The short stories “not included in earlier collections” or “previously unpublished” were done so with good reason.
December 20, 2007
Maybe Faulkner should have stuck to short stories.
January 27, 2008
Slow, boring, and incoherent. Based on this sampling, I'm not sure what the big deal is about Faulkner.
Read
January 14, 2010Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner by William Faulkner (1997)
Read
September 14, 2009Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner (Vintage International) by William Faulkner (1997)
January 22, 2019
The Bear, by William Faulkner, is one of many short stories the make up the novel, “The Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner.” This story is about, a teenage boy named Isaac McCaslin, and his battle against nature. The story is symbolic in the sense that Old Ben (The Bear) is nature and the hunters can be interpreted as the force that is trying to control nature. Old Ben is a symbol of power and legend in the town. Old Ben is seen as immortal because of the amount of damage he can take, invulnerability, and has the ability to overpower anything. “He had listened to it for years: the long legend of corncribs rifled, of shotes and grown pigs and even calves carried bodily into the woods and devoured, of traps and deadfalls overthrown and dogs mangled and slain, and shotgun and even rifle charges delivered at point-blank range and with no more effect than so many peas blown through a tube by a boy….” One thing I liked about this short story is that it is detailed for the number of pages it has. It is like the author immerses you into the book. Also, I enjoy the setting of the book. It takes place after the civil war, in a small town in the wilderness.
A specific detail from the text is, “He recognized fear. So I will have to see him, he thought, without dread or even hope. I will have to look at him.” In the story, Isaac McCaslin has an encounter with the bear and recognizes his fear of it. Isaac wants to defeat the bear, but the only way he can do that is to face him head-on. This caught my attention because Isaac needs to face his fears and that is something we can all learn from. As people, we are afraid to face our fears because of what we think the consequences will be, but we won’t be able to grow and defeat our demons if we don’t face them head-on.
I would recommend this book to people that enjoy nature. It can help people understand the nature versus humanity. It can also help you learn certain values.
A specific detail from the text is, “He recognized fear. So I will have to see him, he thought, without dread or even hope. I will have to look at him.” In the story, Isaac McCaslin has an encounter with the bear and recognizes his fear of it. Isaac wants to defeat the bear, but the only way he can do that is to face him head-on. This caught my attention because Isaac needs to face his fears and that is something we can all learn from. As people, we are afraid to face our fears because of what we think the consequences will be, but we won’t be able to grow and defeat our demons if we don’t face them head-on.
I would recommend this book to people that enjoy nature. It can help people understand the nature versus humanity. It can also help you learn certain values.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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