Description

 “THE DUSK WAS PEOPLED WITH GHOSTS OF GLAMOROUS AND OLD DISASTROUS THINGS”: SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF SARTORIS INSCRIBED BY FAULKNER

FAULKNER, William. Sartoris. New York: Harcourt, Brace, (1929). Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition of Faulkner’s rare third novel, one of only 1998 copies printed, inscribed on the title page, “William Faulkner, Los Angeles, Cal, 23 April  1936.”

The first of Faulkner’s works to be set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, this novel “concerns the Sartoris family, which revels in a mythical history of clan heroism and nobility that is belied by their current desperation and recklessness” (Encyclopedia of Literature, 994). In addition to introducing characters who would figure prominently in later novels like the Snopes family, Faulkner also takes up a number of themes in Sartoris that he would develop at length in later works: racism, innate brutality, deep-seated sexual obsessions and the disparity between a romanticized Southern past and a paltry present. Petersen A5.1. Hamblin & Brodsky, 53. Increasingly scarce in dust jacket.

Book fine. Spine lightly toned (as often) to fragile, unrestored dust jacket, with chipping along top edge, affecting the word “Sartoris”; two open tears, one to back panel and one to spine. Very desirable inscribed.