Click for full-size.
The Sound and the Fury
by Faulkner, William
- Used
- near fine
- first
- Condition
- Near Fine/Very Good +
- Seller
-
Pasadena, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1929. First edition. Near Fine/Very Good +. A Near Fine copy of the book in a Very Good+ dust jacket. Book with a bright white spine, previous owner's bookplate on the front paste-down and just slight toning and wear at extremities. Jacket with the spine well faded, as usual, and a small repair to the front lower corner, replacing a small chip. Additional wear at the crown, but no other repairs or restoration. First state jacket with "Humanity Uprooted" correctly priced at $3.00.
Faulkner's masterpiece - and one of the towering classics of American literature. The Sound and the Fury follows the travails of the Compsons, a once prominent family in Jefferson, Mississippi. Originally Faulkner began the work as a group of short stories about the Compsons, but decided it would be better suited as a novel - and a very experimental one, at that. A contemporary review in the Nashville Tennessean described it: "Not an easy book. It cannot be read objectively; the reader, if he is to savor the best in this book, must surrender himself entirely. The story has much beauty, but it is a beauty that hath terror in it, the beauty of pathos and tragedy. Never had I adequately known the meaning of pathos until I read the first part of this book." Faulkner's style was too complex for the novel to be an immediate hit, but in time it assumed an important place in the canon and was cited as one of the reasons Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1949. The novel appears on Modern Library's 100 Best English Novels of the 20th century and Le Monde's list of the 100 Books of the Century. Near Fine in Very Good + dust jacket.
Faulkner's masterpiece - and one of the towering classics of American literature. The Sound and the Fury follows the travails of the Compsons, a once prominent family in Jefferson, Mississippi. Originally Faulkner began the work as a group of short stories about the Compsons, but decided it would be better suited as a novel - and a very experimental one, at that. A contemporary review in the Nashville Tennessean described it: "Not an easy book. It cannot be read objectively; the reader, if he is to savor the best in this book, must surrender himself entirely. The story has much beauty, but it is a beauty that hath terror in it, the beauty of pathos and tragedy. Never had I adequately known the meaning of pathos until I read the first part of this book." Faulkner's style was too complex for the novel to be an immediate hit, but in time it assumed an important place in the canon and was cited as one of the reasons Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1949. The novel appears on Modern Library's 100 Best English Novels of the 20th century and Le Monde's list of the 100 Books of the Century. Near Fine in Very Good + dust jacket.
Synopsis
William Faulkner once described The Sound and the Fury, his fourth novel, as “a real son-of-a-bitch” and “the greatest I’ll ever write.” Set in Jefferson, Mississippi, the novel — a classic example of Southern gothic literature — traces the decaying values of the Southern society through the downfall of the aristocratic Compson family. The Sound and the Fury is structured into four distinct sections and perspectives: Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, a mentally disabled 33-year-old man, narrates Part 1: April 7, 1928; Benjy’s older brother, Quentin, narrates Part 2: June 2, 1910; Jason, the youngest Compson brother, narrates April 6, 1928; and Part 4: April 8, 1928 (the day after Part 1) is narrated by a newly introduced third person omniscient point of view. Like James Joyce and other Modernist writers, Faulkner experimented with various narrative techniques, including narrator shifts, frequent times shifts, unconventional punctuation and sentence structure, and — perhaps most predominantly — stream-of-consciousness. Revealing the inner thoughts of the characters to the reader, the narration of The Sound and the Fury is attentive to the events surrounding each character in the present, but also frequently returns to their memories of the past. In doing so, the four parts of the novel relate many of the same episodes, each from different points of view. While initial sales of The Sound and the Fury well less than impressive, the novel became commercially successful with the 1931 publication of Faulkner’s sixth novel, Sanctuary. Still, not one of Faulkner’s novels that followed ever generated as much critical response as The Sound and the Fury. The author was praised for this ability to effectively capture the intimate processes of the human mind in the novel and it played a role in William Faulkner's receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Read More: Identifying first editions of The Sound and the Fury
Reviews
(Log in or Create an Account first!)
Details
- Bookseller
- Whitmore Rare Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 5279
- Title
- The Sound and the Fury
- Author
- Faulkner, William
- Book Condition
- Used - Near Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good +
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First edition
- Publisher
- Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1929
- Keywords
- It's not when you realise that nothing can help you--religion, pride, anything--it's when you realise that you dont need any aid.
Terms of Sale
Whitmore Rare Books
15 day return guarantee, with full refund if an item arrives damaged or not matching the description.
About the Seller
Whitmore Rare Books
Biblio member since 2009
Pasadena, California
About Whitmore Rare Books
We operate a retail shop in "Old Town" Pasadena open normal business hours Tuesday through Saturday.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Paste-down
- The paste-down is the portion of the endpaper that is glued to the inner boards of a hardback book. The paste-down forms an...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Good+
- A term used to denote a condition a slight grade better than Good.
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- First State
- used in book collecting to refer to a book from the earliest run of a first edition, generally distinguished by a change in some...
- Bookplate
- Highly sought after by some collectors, a book plate is an inscribed or decorative device that identifies the owner, or former...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
Frequently asked questions
This Book’s Categories
Collecting the 1939 New York World’s Fair
Born in the midst of the Great Depression, the theme of the 1939 World’s Fair was “The World of Tomorrow” - a theme that captured the hearts of a generation. Check out the maps, souvenirs, and other ephemera on Biblio!
Collecting Signed Books
Read through our tips, hints, and information on collecting books signed or inscribed by the author or illustrator.
