New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1929. First edition. A Near Fine copy of the book in a Very Good+ dust jacket. Book with a bright white spine, previous owner's bookplate on the front paste-down and just slight toning and wear at extremities. Jacket with the spine well faded, as usual, and a small repair to the front lower corner, replacing a small chip. Additional wear at the crown, but no other repairs or restoration. First state jacket with "Humanity Uprooted" correctly priced at $3.00.

Faulkner’s masterpiece – and one of the towering classics of American literature. The Sound and the Fury follows the travails of the Compsons, a once prominent family in Jefferson, Mississippi. Originally Faulkner began the work as a group of short stories about the Compsons, but decided it would be better suited as a novel – and a very experimental one, at that. A contemporary review in the Nashville Tennessean described it: “Not an easy book. It cannot be read objectively; the reader, if he is to savor the best in this book, must surrender himself entirely. The story has much beauty, but it is a beauty that hath terror in it, the beauty of pathos and tragedy. Never had I adequately known the meaning of pathos until I read the first part of this book.” Faulkner’s style was too complex for the novel to be an immediate hit, but in time it assumed an important place in the canon and was cited as one of the reasons Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1949. The novel appears on Modern Library’s 100 Best English Novels of the 20th century and Le Monde’s list of the 100 Books of the Century. Near Fine in Very Good + dust jacket. (Item #5279)