University of Delaware
Office of Public Relations
UpDate - Vol. 16, No. 24, March 20



           Faulkner centenary celebration display in library
     
     William Faulkner: A Centenary Celebration" is on
display in the Special Collections Exhibition Gallery of the
Morris Library through June 20.
     The exhibition, which is drawn entirely from the
collections of the UD Library, pays tribute to one of
America's most prolific and profound authors.
     Faulkner was born Sept. 25, 1897, into a notable
Mississippi family. His experiences living and working at
various jobs in the small rural towns of Mississippi,
joining the Royal Air Force in Canada, living with other
artists and writers in New Orleans and New York, as well as
his journeys abroad, provided Faulkner with the events and
people he later fictionalized in the pages of his novels and
stories.
     The fictitious Yoknapatawpha County, of which Faulkner
appointed himself "sole owner and proprietor," brings
together a group of characters who suffer in the present
unable to free themselves from a past visited upon them by
their ancestors. The themes important to Faulkner were time
and the ownership of both land and people. These themes are
played out over and over again in his phenomenal literary
production.
     In the early years of Faulkner's career as a writer,
which began in 1919, he was often misunderstood and little
appreciated for his imaginative power and ability to
transform his themes into works that would later bring him
such acclaim as the Nobel Prize (1950), the Pulitzer Prize
(1955) and a host of other prestigious literary awards.
     Always an experimenter, Faulkner gave the world his
genius in the form of poetry, short stories, plays,
screenplays, novels, even illustrations and anecdotes.
During his most productive years, he offered readers an
average of one book per year for 20 years.
     The University Library's collection of Faulkner's
published work includes first editions, foreign and variant
editions, scarce fine press and paperback editions,
translations and anthologies.
     Selections for the exhibition were chosen by curator
Priscilla Thomas, collections.
     The gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Mondays
through Fridays, and until 8 p.m. on Tuesdays.
     For additional information, call 831-2231.
     The library plan's a web version of the exhibition,
which will be accessible at: http://www.lib.udel.
edu/ud/spec/exhibits/faulkner/