A Reader's Guide to William Faulkner - (Reader's Guides) by Edmond L Volpe (Paperback)

About the Book

Seventy-one stories receive individual critical analysis and evaluation. These discussions reveal the relationship of the stories to the novels and point up Faulkner's skills as a writer of short fiction.

Book Synopsis

This Reader's Guide is a companion to Edmond L. Volpe's Reader's Guide to William Faulkner: The Novels, the most complete guide to the novels of Faulkner and hailed by critics as "a book to be read, studied, and returned to often: ' The new Guide--the first comprehensive book of its kind--offers analyses of all Faulkner's short stories, published and unpublished, that were not incorporated into novels or turned into chapters of a novel. Each of the seventy-one stories receives separate and detailed appraisal. This exacting approach helps establish the relationship of the stories to the novels and underscores Faulkner's formidable skill as a writer of short fiction. Although Faulkner often spoke disparagingly of the short story form and claimed that he wrote stories for money--which he did--Edmond L. Volpe's study reveals that Faulkner could not resist the application of his incomparable creative imagination or his mastery of narrative structure and technique to this genre.

Review Quotes

Volpe more than any others has established Faulkner as a great short story writer. He lingers long and intensely over Faulkner's development in technical skills: his uses of narration, of temporal matters, of structural properties suitable to short fiction. His book serves both as a guide and as a way to read Faulkner. . . . Volpe has established Faulkner as a major figure in another genre: short stories that can exist on their own without their being shadowed by the major novels.-- "Frederick R. Karl, George Eliot, Voice of a Century: A Biography"

About the Author

Edmond L. Volpe, professor emeritus at the City College of New York, served as president of the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. He has edited and written fifteen books (including A Reader's Guide to William Faulkner: The Novels, also published by Syracuse University Press) and published many articles on American literature and higher education.