As I Lay Dying

William Faulkner (1897-1962) is the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, among other works. These two novels were originally published by Liveright in the 1920s. Michael Gorra is the Mary Augusta Jordan Professor of English at Smith College, where he has taught since 1985. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation and, for his work as a reviewer, of the Balakian Award from the National Book Critics Circle. His books include The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War; Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of on American Masterpiece, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography; The Bells in Their Silence: Travels through Germany; After Empire: Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie; The English Novel at Mid-Century; and, as editor, The Portable Conrad and the Norton Critical Editions of The Sound and the Fury and The Portrait of a Lady.

Introduction Note on the Text The Text of As I Lay Dying Backgrounds and Contexts CONTEMPORARY RECEPTION 1. Margaret Cheney Dawson * Beside Addie's Coffin 2. Julia K. W. Baker * Literature and Less 3. Clifton P. Fadiman * Morbidity in Fiction 4. Henry Nash Smith * A Troubled Vision 5. Henry Seidel Canby * The School of Cruelty 6. Maurice-Edgar Coindreau * William Faulkner 7. Valery Larbaud * "Preface" to Tandis que j'agonise 8. Edwin Muir * From New Novels THE WRITER AND HIS WORK 1. William Faulkner * Adolescence 2. William Faulkner * As I Lay Dying 3. William Faulkner * Introduction to the Modern Library edition of Sanctuary 4. William Faulkner * An Introduction for The Sound and the Fury 5. William Faulkner * Address upon Receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature 6. William Faulkner * The Paris Review Interview 7. William Faulkner * Class Conferences at the University of Virginia 8. William Faulkner * Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi [Map] 9. William Faulkner * Sample pages from the manuscript and carbon typescript of As I Lay Dying CULTURAL CONTEXT 1. Carson McCullers * The Russian Realists and Southern Literature 2. Fred Hobson * Benighted South 3. Andrew Nelson Lytle * The Hind Tit 4. James Agee * The Gudger House 5. Thoms D. Clark * From Pills, Petticoats and Plows: The Southern Country Store 6. C. D. Mitchell, M.D. * Thirty-Sixth Biennial Report of the Mississippi State Insane Hospital, Jackson, Mississippi. From July 1, 1925 to June 30, 1927 CRITICISM 1. Olga W. Vickery * The Dimension of Consciousness 2. Cleanth Brooks * Odyssey of the Bundrens 3. Calvin Bedient * Pride and Nakedness: As I Lay Dying 4. Andre Bleikasten * The Setting 5. Eric Sundquist * Death, Grief, Analogous Form: As I Lay Dying 6. Stephen M. Ross * Mimetic Voice 7. Doreen Fowler * Matricide and the Mother's Revenge: As I Lay Dying 8. Patrick O'Donnell * Between the Family and the State: Nomadism and Authority in As I Lay Dying 9. Richard Gray * A Southern Carnival 10. John Limon * Addie in No Man's Land 11. Donald M. Kartiganer * "By It I Would Stand or Fall": Life and Death in As I Lay Dying William Faulkner: A Chronology Selected Bibliography