William Faulkner, Light in August

Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University)

Ed. by Thomas Dasher, Berry College
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Patrick Chura (University of Akron), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1932

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Light in August, published by Harrison Smith and Robert Haas on 6 October 1932 (Blotner and Polk, 1025), is the seventh of William Faulkner’s nineteen novels and the fifth of fourteen that he set primarily in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, the apocryphal town and county he created in his fiction. Though his longest novel, it took him only six months to write, from mid-August 1931 to mid-February 1932, and another month to complete the typescript he sent to his agent (Blotner, 280, 302). The novel is notable as the first major work in which Faulkner directly addresses the issues of race and racially motivated violence in America.

Light in August had its apparent origins in an unpublished short story entitled “Rose of Lebanon”. One of the story’s main characters is obsessed with his father’s death...

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6463 words

Citation: Meats, Stephen E.. "Light in August". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 December 2008; last revised 19 May 2025. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3966, accessed 09 June 2026.]

William Faulkner, Light in August

Dates

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