William Faulkner  (1897-1962) A Rose for Emily LINKS William Faulkner on the Web http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html This site, sponsored by the University of Mississippi in Faulkner's hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, offers both scholarly background resources and trivia on the author. The William Faulkner Foundation, France http://www.uhb.fr/Faulkner/http://www.uhb.fr/Faulkner/ This site offers extensive links to Faulkner resources, including a bibliography, a chronology, scholarly articles, a filmography, and speeches by Faulkner. BIOGRAPHY William Faulkner (1897–1962)  Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, and lived most of his life in Oxford, the seat of the University of Mississippi. Although he did not graduate from high school, he did attend the university as a special student from 1919 to 1921. During this period, he also worked as a janitor, a bank clerk, and a postmaster. His southern forebears had held slaves, served during the Civil War, endured the indignities of Reconstruction, fought duels, even wrote the occasional romance of the old South. Faulkner mined these generous layers of history in his work. He created the mythical Yoknapatawpha County in northern Mississippi, and traced the destinies of its inhabitants from the colonial era to the middle of the twentieth century in such novels as The Sound and the Fury (1929), Light in August (1932), and Absalom, Absalom! (1936). Further, Faulkner described the decline of the pre–Civil War aristocratic families and the rise of mean-spirited money grubbers in a trilogy: The Hamlet (1940), The Town (1957), The Mansion (1959). Recognition came late, and Faulkner fought a constant battle to keep afloat financially. During the 1940s, he wrote screenplays in Hollywood. But, finally, his achievement brought him the Nobel Prize in 1950.