"THE DUSK WAS PEOPLED WITH GHOSTS OF GLAMOROUS AND OLD DISASTROUS THINGS": FIRST EDITION OF SARTORIS, AN EXCEPTIONAL COPY

FAULKNER, William. Sartoris. New York: Harcourt, Brace, (1929). Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $15,000.

First edition of Faulkner's rare third novel, one of only 1998 copies printed.

The first of Faulkner's works to be set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, this novel "concerns the Sartoris family, which revels in a mythical history of clan heroism and nobility that is belied by their current desperation and recklessness" (Encyclopedia of Literature, 994). In addition to introducing characters who would figure prominently in later novels, such as the Snopes family, Faulkner also takes up a number of themes in Sartoris that he would develop at length in later works: racism, innate brutality, deep-seated sexual obsessions and the disparity between a romanticized Southern past and a paltry present. Petersen A5.1. Hamblin & Brodsky 50.

Book about-fine with faintest rubbing to front board; bright dust jacket with notably less fading to spine than usual, crease to rear panel, one tiny tape repair to verso. A beautiful copy.