William Faulkner Books in Order

Donald Mahon returns to Georgia badly wounded after World War I, and the people around him must face what the war has changed. Faulkner's first novel follows love, jealousy, loss, and disillusionment at home.

A group of artists, writers, and socialites gathers for a weekend on a yacht near New Orleans. Faulkner's early comic novel pokes at artistic posing, romantic confusion, and the gap between talk and talent.

On her birthday, Dulcie and her friends meet a magical guide and set out to find a tree that grants wishes. Faulkner's children's story is a playful fantasy about imagination, friendship, and choosing wisely.

The Sartoris family tries to hold onto its old place in Mississippi after World War I. Young Bayard Sartoris struggles with grief, reckless habits, and the heavy expectations attached to his family name.

The decline of the Compson family unfolds through several fractured viewpoints, including the brothers Benjy, Quentin, and Jason. Memory, obsession, and resentment turn one Mississippi family's private history into a demanding, intimate drama.

After the death of Emily Grierson, the people of Jefferson look back on the strange, guarded life she led. This Gothic story uses town gossip and withheld details to uncover a disturbing private history.

After Addie Bundren dies, her family undertakes a punishing journey to bury her in her hometown. Told through many voices, this darkly funny novel reveals grief, self-interest, endurance, and family life at its most strained.

College student Temple Drake becomes caught in a violent criminal world after taking shelter at an isolated Mississippi house. The fallout draws lawyer Horace Benbow into a grim story of fear, exploitation, and failed justice.

This early collection gathers thirteen stories, including “A Rose for Emily,” “That Evening Sun,” and “Dry September.” It offers compact visits to Faulkner's Mississippi, where ordinary routines often hide fear, conflict, and history.

In a Mississippi town, the lives of Lena Grove, Joe Christmas, and Reverend Hightower cross under the pressure of loneliness, rumor, and racial hatred. Faulkner builds a tense, tragic story around identity and belonging.

A varied early story collection featuring troubled families, wounded veterans, artists, laborers, and outsiders. These tales show Faulkner moving between Mississippi settings and more experimental pieces while refining his approach to character and voice.

A New Orleans reporter becomes fascinated by a restless group of barnstorming pilots and their unusual household. Set around an air show, the novel follows people chasing speed, danger, and a life outside convention.

Quentin Compson and his friend Shreve try to piece together the life of Thomas Sutpen, a man who built a grand Mississippi estate on a ruthless plan. Each retelling exposes more uncertainty, damage, and obsession.

These linked Civil War and Reconstruction stories follow Bayard Sartoris as he grows up in Yoknapatawpha County. Family pride, guerrilla warfare, and the difficult choices of peace test what courage and honor can mean.

This collection centers on “Barn Burning,” Faulkner's story of a boy caught between conscience and family loyalty. The accompanying tales offer more compact portraits of Southern communities, buried resentments, and difficult moral choices.

Two alternating stories run side by side: a couple risk everything for their affair, while a convict is swept into a Mississippi flood rescue. Love, duty, freedom, and confinement echo across both narratives.

In rural Frenchman's Bend, Flem Snopes begins his steady rise by exploiting money troubles, family ties, and local weaknesses. The first Snopes novel mixes broad comedy with a sharp look at greed and power.

A sequence of linked stories follows the McCaslin family and the people bound to its land across generations. Questions of slavery, inheritance, race, wilderness, and responsibility gather into a powerful Yoknapatawpha chronicle.

Young Ike McCaslin learns to hunt in the Mississippi wilderness under the guidance of Sam Fathers. His pursuit of an old bear becomes a larger story about land, inheritance, freedom, and the end of a way of life.

This wide-ranging collection brings together forty-two Faulkner stories from across his career. It includes dark Gothic pieces, comic tales, war stories, and recurring Yoknapatawpha characters, making it a strong survey of his short fiction.

When Lucas Beauchamp, a Black farmer, is accused of murder, teenager Chick Mallison begins to doubt the case against him. A tense investigation confronts racial prejudice and mob violence in a Mississippi town.

Six linked mysteries feature Jefferson lawyer Gavin Stevens as he investigates family secrets, crimes, and local scandals. The stories blend detective plotting with Faulkner's interest in memory, class, race, and small-town judgment.

Years after *Sanctuary*, Temple Drake seeks help for Nancy Mannigoe, a nurse condemned for killing Temple's infant child. Part novel and part play, the book links private guilt to the history of Jefferson, Mississippi.

During World War I, a French corporal's refusal to fight sparks a wider challenge to military authority. Faulkner turns the conflict into a large-scale moral story about war, sacrifice, faith, and obedience.

This volume pairs Faulkner's dark crime novel *Sanctuary* with its later follow-up, *Requiem for a Nun*. Together they follow Temple Drake and explore violence, guilt, public judgment, and the troubled history of Jefferson.

Four connected hunting stories return to the Mississippi wilderness and the people shaped by it. Centered on Ike McCaslin's world, the collection includes “The Bear” and reflects on land, animals, tradition, and change.

A broad selection of Faulkner's short fiction, from Gothic town stories to Yoknapatawpha family dramas. It is a useful introduction to his recurring settings, shifting perspectives, sharp humor, and ability to make a small moment matter.

These early sketches capture New Orleans street life, artists, drifters, and odd encounters with a young writer's curiosity. They show Faulkner before Yoknapatawpha County, trying out urban observation, satire, and compressed storytelling.

Flem Snopes leaves Frenchman's Bend and begins making his way in Jefferson, Mississippi. Told by several town observers, the novel watches his quiet climb through business, marriage, gossip, and other people's underestimation.

This collection brings together three shorter Faulkner works in one volume. It offers a concentrated introduction to his Mississippi world, where family history, class, race, memory, and the natural landscape shape every decision.

Flem Snopes has become a powerful figure in Jefferson, but old enemies and old wounds have not disappeared. The final Snopes novel brings years of small-town ambition, resentment, and revenge toward a reckoning.

This volume collects Faulkner's early poetry, written before his fiction career took hold. The poems reveal his interest in romantic imagery, classical references, landscapes, and the musical possibilities of language.

Eleven-year-old Lucius Priest joins Boon Hogganbeck and Ned McCaslin in stealing his grandfather's automobile for a trip to Memphis. Their misadventure becomes a lively coming-of-age tale about trouble, loyalty, and consequences.

A collection of Faulkner stories featuring eccentric locals, strained families, and people facing sudden pressure. The pieces move between humor and darkness while returning to the social rules and hidden tensions of the American South.

This fuller version of *Sartoris* returns to the Sartoris family after World War I. Bayard struggles with loss and recklessness while the older generation watches its social world change beyond recognition.

This slim volume presents two early Faulkner pieces from before his major novels. It is most useful for readers interested in his formative experiments with mood, dialogue, romantic conflict, and literary style.

This early Faulkner work is a compact, experimental tale shaped by romance, fantasy, and dark humor. It offers a glimpse of a young writer testing forms and themes before the Mississippi novels made his name.

This early one-act play gathers Faulkner's youthful dramatic writing in a theatrical form. Its characters and stylized situation show him experimenting with performance, desire, and the uneasy roles people play for one another.

This posthumous gathering collects stories Faulkner did not include in his lifetime books. It gives readers a fuller view of his working process, including early experiments, lesser-known Mississippi tales, and material later reshaped for novels.

Written with Joel Sayre, this screenplay tells a World War I story centered on soldiers serving at the front in France. It shows Faulkner working in the direct, scene-driven form of Hollywood war drama.

Young Sarty Snopes is torn between loyalty to his father and his growing sense that his father's violence is wrong. When Abner Snopes targets another landowner, Sarty must decide what kind of life he can live.

This anthology offers a guided sampling of Faulkner's novels and short fiction. It is designed to introduce the recurring families, towns, moral conflicts, and distinctive storytelling methods that make up his larger fictional world.

This collection gathers Faulkner's youthful writing from his University of Mississippi years. Poems, prose, drawings, and campus pieces reveal the interests and habits of a writer still finding the subjects and forms he would pursue.