Light in August (60 page)

This volume reproduces the text of
Light in August
that has been established by Noel Polk. The copy-text for this novel is William Faulkner’s own ribbon typescript setting copy, which has been emended to account for his revisions in proof, his indisputable typing errors, and certain other mistakes and inconsistencies that clearly demand correction. Faulkner typed and proofread this document himself, and it also bears alterations of varying degrees of seriousness by his editors.

According to the dates on the manuscript, Faulkner began a novel called
Dark House
on August 17, 1931; the finished manuscript, completed on February 19, 1932, was called
Light in August
. The typescript was only minimally marked by editors; Faulkner himself made several minor changes in proof. The novel was published on October 6, 1932. Extant documents relevant to the editing of
Light in
August
include the holograph manuscript and the larger portion of the typescript setting copy (pp.
6
–
310
), at the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia; the final pages (
311
–
335
) of the setting copy and the corrected galleys are in the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas.

American English continues to fluctuate; for example, a word may be spelled in more than one way, even in the same work. Commas are sometimes used expressively to suggest the movements of voice, and capitals are sometimes meant to give significances to a word beyond those it might have in its uncapitalized form. Since standardization would remove such effects, this volume preserves the spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and wording of the texts established by Noel Polk, which strive to be as faithful to Faulkner’s usage as surviving evidence permits.

The following notes were prepared by Joseph Blotner and are reprinted with permission from
Novels 1930–1935
, one volume of the edition of Faulkner’s collected works published by The Library of America, 1985. Numbers refer to page and line of the present volume (the line count includes chapter headings).

For further information on
Light in August
, consult
Twentieth Century Interpretations of Light in August: A Collection of Critical Essays
, ed. by David L. Minter (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969); François Pitavy,
Faulkner’s “Light in August”
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, rev. ed., 1973); Regina K. Fadiman,
Faulkner’s “Light in August”: A Description and Interpretation of the Revisions
(Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 1975); and
William Faulkner’s “Light in August,”
ed. by François L. Pitavy (New York: Garland Publishing, 1981).

W
illiam Cuthbert Faulkner was born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, the first of four sons of Murry and Maud Butler Falkner (he later added the “u” to the family name himself). In 1904 the family moved to the university town of Oxford, Mississippi, where Faulkner was to spend most of his life. He was named for his great-grandfather “The Old Colonel,” a Civil War veteran who built a railroad, wrote a bestselling romantic novel called
The White Rose of Memphis
, became a Mississippi state legislator, and was eventually killed in what may or may not have been a duel with a disgruntled business partner. Faulkner identified with this robust and energetic ancestor and often said that he inherited the “ink stain” from him.

Never fond of school, Faulkner left at the end of football season his senior year of high school, and began working at his grandfather’s bank. In 1918, after his plans to marry his sweetheart Estelle Oldham were squashed by their families, he tried to enlist as a pilot in the U.S. Army but was rejected because he did not meet the height and weight requirements. He went to Canada, where he pretended to be an Englishman and joined the RAF training program there. Although he did not complete his training until after the war ended and never saw combat, he returned to his hometown in uniform, boasting of war wounds. He briefly attended the University of Mississippi, where he began to publish his poetry.

After spending a short time living in New York, he again returned to Oxford, where he worked at the university post office. His first book, a collection of poetry,
The Marble Faun
, was published at Faulkner’s own expense in 1924. The writer Sherwood Anderson, whom he met in New Orleans in 1925, encouraged him to try writing fiction, and his first novel,
Soldier’s Pay
, was published in 1926. It was followed by
Mosquitoes
. His next novel, which he titled
Flags in the Dust
, was rejected by his publisher and twelve others to whom he submitted it. It was eventually published in drastically edited form as
Sartoris
(the original version was not issued until after his death). Meanwhile, he was writing
The Sound and the Fury
, which, after being rejected by one publisher, came out in 1929 and received many ecstatic reviews, although it sold poorly. Yet again, a new novel,
Sanctuary
, was initially rejected by his publisher, this time as “too shocking.” While working on the night shift at a power plant, Faulkner wrote what he was determined would be his masterpiece,
As I Lay Dying
. He finished it in about seven weeks, and it was published in 1930, again to generally good reviews and mediocre sales.

In 1929 Faulkner had finally married his childhood sweetheart, Estelle, after her divorce from her first husband. They had a premature daughter, Alabama, who died ten days after birth in 1931; a second daughter, Jill, was born in 1933.

With the eventual publication of his most sensational and violent (as well as, up until then, most successful) novel,
Sanctuary
(1931), Faulkner was invited to write scripts for MGM and Warner Brothers, where he was responsible for much of the dialogue in the film versions of Hemingway’s
To Have and Have Not
and Chandler’s
The Big Sleep
, and many other films. He continued to write novels and published many stories in popular magazines.
Light in August
(1932) was his first attempt to address the racial issues of the South, an effort continued in
Absalom, Absalom!
(1936), and
Go Down, Moses
(1942). By 1946, most of Faulkner’s novels were out of print in the United States (although they remained well-regarded in Europe), and he was seen as a minor, regional writer. But then the influential editor and critic Malcolm Cowley, who had earlier championed Hemingway and Fitzgerald and others of their generation, put together
The Portable Faulkner
, and once again Faulkner’s genius was recognized, this time for good. He received the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature as well as many other awards and accolades, including the National Book Award and the Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and France’s Legion of Honor.

In addition to several collections of short fiction, his other novels include
Pylon
(1935),
The Unvanquished
(1938),
The Wild Palms
(1939),
The Hamlet
(1940),
Intruder in the Dust
(1948),
A Fable
(1954),
The Town
(1957),
The Mansion
(1959), and
The Reivers
(1962).

William Faulkner died of a heart attack on July 6, 1962, in Oxford, Mississippi, where he is buried.