Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner

Rating:
Summary: An Incomplete Un-Collection
Review: Although I have not read all of his short stories, I find Faulkner's tales to be poigniant reflections of American life, without being overtly obvious in their symbolism. The reader draws as much, or as little, as he wishes from Faulkner.

Being a work of 'uncollected' stories, it does not have the consistency as, say, These 13, or others arranged by Faulkner, but it does have its gems.

Consider it the "B-side" to a great album collection, some of which you may otherwise never have read, but worth it read, nonetheless.

Rating:
Summary: Essential for the Faulkner completist
Review: William Faulkner is one of the most celebrated and popular authors in all of American literature. With his widespread popularity, and stature within the literary world, a book such as this needs to be in print. The book basically picks up everything -- or nearly everything -- of Faulkner's that had not been published up to that point, including: short stories that were later made into novels, short stories published in various fiction magazines that were never collected in a previous Faulkner anthology, and Faulkner stories that had never before been published anywhere. Some of the first group are nearly identical to the books of which they would eventually become a part -- The Unvanquished; The Hamlet; Go Down, Moses; Big Woods; and The Mansion -- but some are radically different. The alterations made to these stories offer a fascinating peek into Faulkner's writing process. They also offer a taste of some of Faulkner's novels, and, thus, work well as a sampler: the reader can read these stories and see which of the novels he or she might like to subsequently pick up. The previously uncollected stories contain some real gems and are eminently worthy; also, only the most hard-core Faulkner reader will have read them before. The previously unpublished stories are not of a significantly lower quality, as one might expect; indeed, some of them are very good -- just as good, or better, as some of the published stories. In any case, they constitute a goldmine for the Faulkner reader. The same goes for the book as a whole: though this certainly does not contain his best work, it contains much that is very good, and everything else is worthy -- perhaps some are even superlative. To be sure, some stories are of less worth than others, but they are all vintage Faulkner, and this is an essential volume for both Faulkner fans and scholars.