William Cuthbert Faulkner William Cuthbert Falkner
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William Faulkner received the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for his novels set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. He wrote works such as The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!, and also worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, collaborating with director Howard Hawks on films like To Have and Have Not. Faulkner won two Pulitzer Prizes, for A Fable in 1955 and The Reivers in 1962.
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William Faulkner — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
The eldest of four sons, William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi. He moved with his family to Oxford, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life. Faulkner attended the University of Mississippi but left without graduating; he later studied at the University of Virginia. His Southern upbringing provided the material for his fictional Yoknapatawpha County.
Faulkner published his first novel, Soldier’s Pay, in 1926. His novel The Sound and the Fury, published in 1929, brought him critical notice. He followed this with As I Lay Dying in 1930 and Absalom, Absalom! in 1936. To support his family, Faulkner began writing screenplays for Hollywood, collaborating with director Howard Hawks on To Have and Have Not 1944 and The Big Sleep 1946. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949 and won Pulitzer Prizes for A Fable 1955 and The Reivers 1962.
Faulkner married Estelle Oldham in 1929 and was close friends with his publisher Bennett Cerf and screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides. He once went on a hunting trip with Clark Gable, during which they famously discussed writers. Faulkner returned frequently to his home in Oxford, Mississippi, maintaining his privacy. He despised television except for his favorite show, Car 54, Where Are You?
In 1949, Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his powerful and independent artistic contribution. His work influenced writers such as Gabriel García Márquez and Cormac McCarthy. Faulkner’s screenplay for To Have and Have Not is the only film in history to have two Nobel laureates associated with it. He created the fictional Yoknapatawpha County and wrote works like The Sound and the Fury.
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William Faulkner's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
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A wall of memorable lines from William Faulkner — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
Gratitude Is a Quality Similar to Electricity: It Must Be Produced and Discharged and Used up in Order to Exist at All . . . Always Dream and Shoot Higher Than You Know You Can Do. Don’t Bother Just to Be Better Than Your Contemporaries or Predecessors. Try to Be Better Than Yourself.
I’m Just a Farmer Who Likes to Tell Stories.
Hollywood Is a Place Where a Man Can Get Stabbed in the Back While Climbing a Ladder.
It’s Not Hollywood’s Fault. the Writer Is Not Accustomed to Money. It Goes to His Head and Destroys Him.
If a Writer Has to Rob His Mother, He Will Not Hesitate: the Ode on a Grecian Urn Is Worth Any Number of Old Ladies.
As Long as I Live Under the Capitalistic System, I Expect to Have My Life Influenced by the Demands of Moneyed People. but I Will Be Damned If I Propose to Be at the Beck and Call of Every Itinerant Scoundrel Who Has Two Cents to Invest in a Postage Stamp. This, Sir, Is My Resignation.
Little-known facts about William Faulkner — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
Howard Hawks once took Faulkner and Clark Gable on a hunting trip without telling either who the other was. Gable asked Faulkner who he thought the best writers were, and Faulkner listed Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Thomas Mann, and himself. Gable then asked, Oh, do you write, Mr. Faulkner? and Faulkner replied, Yes. And what do you do, Mr. Gable?
His screenplay for Ernest Hemingway’s novel To Have and Have Not 1944 is the only time in film history that two Nobel Prize-winning authors worked on the same motion picture, though Faulkner and Hemingway had little sympathy for each other.
After being hired by 20th Century-Fox as a screenwriter, Faulkner sat around the writers building for weeks without doing anything. A producer asked if he had any story ideas, and Faulkner said he could write better at home. The producer agreed, but Faulkner went home to Oxford, Mississippi, not his Hollywood rental.
The alcoholic Southern novelist-turned-screenwriter W. P. Mayhew in the movie Barton Fink 1991 is based loosely on Faulkner.
Faulkner frequently worked with Howard Hawks.
While in Hollywood, he was friends with screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides and actor Humphrey Bogart.
His favorite TV show was Car 54, Where Are You? 1961. Though he despised television, he reportedly visited a friend’s house every Saturday night to watch the cop comedy.
He was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Faulkner is interred at Saint Peter’s Cemetery in Oxford, Mississippi.
A short story by Faulkner, Two Soldiers, published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1942, was adapted into a short film that won the 2004 Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.
He was close friends with his publisher, Random House owner Bennett Cerf. Faulkner greeted Cerf’s wife, Phyllis Fraser, as Miss Phyllis and called her that forever after.
When asked at the University of Virginia why he chose the particular stories for Go Down Moses, Faulkner replied, Well, when we put ’em all together it looked to be the right size for a book.
Faulkner is pictured on a 22¢ US commemorative postage stamp in the Literary Arts series, issued August 3, 1987.
He once worked as a house painter.
Faulkner served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War I. He later tried to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II but was rejected due to age; he instead worked on local civil defense.
His brother Murry Falkner was an FBI agent who helped hunt down John Dillinger.
He always turned down offers to write screenplays based on his own books. Despite his long Hollywood relationship, only one of his stories is set there: Golden Land.
Faulkner was a very private man.
He was born at 11:00 pm CST.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about William Faulkner.
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