“THE GREATEST INNOVATOR IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN FICTION”: FAULKNER’S THE SOUND AND THE FURY, IN RARE FIRST-STATE DUST JACKET

FAULKNER, William. The Sound and the Fury. New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, (1929). Octavo, original half white cloth, black and white patterned paper boards, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $18,000.

First edition of Faulkner’s masterpiece, in rare unrestored first-state dust jacket.

Faulkner’s intricate masterwork began its life as an innocuous short story “about a girl and her brothers,” gradually growing into “this radically different work, this immense leap in technique that would contribute to one critic's calling him ‘the greatest innovator in the history of American fiction” (Blotner, 212). “The book suggests Joyce in its technique and the Russians— perhaps Dostoyevsky— in its theme. Fundamentally it owes little to any individual or to any school: it stands alone as a unique and startling conception” (from front flap). First-state dust jacket with Humanity Uprooted priced at $3.00 on the rear panel. Petersen A6.2a. Brucolli & Clark I:121. Brodsky 65.

Book near-fine, with slight toning to extremities. Fragile price-clipped dust jacket extremely good, with shallow chipping and fading spine, as often. A desirable and completely unrestored copy of an exceptionally rare Faulkner title.