With contributions by Greg Barnhisel, John N. Duvall, Kristin Fujie,
Sarah E. Gardner, Jaime Harker, Kristi Rowan Humphreys, Robert Jackson,
Mary A. Knighton, Jennifer Nolan, Carl Rollyson, Tim A. Ryan, Jay
Satterfield, Erin A. Smith, Jay Watson, and Yung-Hsing Wu
William Faulkner's first ventures into print culture began far from the
world of highbrow New York publishing houses such as Boni & Liveright or
Random House and little magazines such as the Double Dealer. With that
diverse publishing history in mind, this collection explores Faulkner's
multifaceted engagements, as writer and reader, with the US and
international print cultures of his era, along with how these cultures
have mediated his relationship with various twentieth- and
twenty-first-century audiences.
These essays address the place of Faulkner and his writings in the
creation, design, publishing, marketing, reception, and collecting of
books, in the culture of twentieth-century magazines, journals,
newspapers, and other periodicals (from pulp to avant-garde), in the
history of modern readers and readerships, and in the construction and
cultural politics of literary authorship.
Several contributors focus on Faulkner's sensational 1931 novel
Sanctuary to illustrate the author's multifaceted relationship to the
print ecology of his time, tracing the novel's path from the wellsprings
of Faulkner's artistic vision to the novel's reception among reviewers,
tastemakers, intellectuals, and other readers of the early 1930s. Other
essayists discuss Faulkner's early notices, the Saturday Review of
Literature, Saturday Evening Post, men's magazines of the 1950s, and
Cold War modernism.
