The Golden Book of
Yoknapatawpha County

Set in 1919 and 1920, involves the Sartoris, Benbow and MacCallum families. There exist three versions. Faulkner’s original 1927 manuscript was heavily edited and cut by the publisher and Faulkner himself, and published in 1929 as Sartoris. A version of the original manuscript edited by Douglas Day was published in 1973 and remained in print thereafter. Another version corrected by Noel Polk was first published in 2006 and is now most readily available. It includes countless small changes, affecting most paragraphs, restoring original phrasings and a number of larger pieces of dialogue and reordering the first section of the first chapter. It also corrects the death dates of John (I), John (III) and Bayard (II) Sartoris as quoted off their tombstones, which did not correspond with their death dates as mentioned elsewhere in the text, as well as the ages of Jackson and Henry MacCallum in December 1919, that contradicted the biography of their father Virginius (I). Curiously, while the latter’s age is also changed, from 82 to 77, this is still too old to be compatible with his 1861 age of sixteen.

Set in June 1910 and April 1928, and (through flashbacks) various (difficult to pinpoint) years before and in between. In 1945, Faulkner wrote an appendix (originally published in The Portable Faulkner) that summarises the Compton family history between 1699 and 1945.

Set in July of an unspecified year after the Great War. Since the flooding of the Yoknapatawpha is a central plot element, the year should be 1927, which saw extensive flooding in Northern Mississippi (as suggested by Railton et al 2011). The story involves the Bundren family, as well as a number of other characters from Frenchman’s Bend.

Sequel to FitD. There exist two versions: the manuscript that Faulkner sent to the publisher in 1929 and that was published as Sanctuary — The Original Text by Noel Polk in 1981, and Faulkner’s canonical 1931 revision published that same year. Broadly speaking, there are four differences between the two versions. First, Faulkner’s revision changes the order of the text, which is not relevant here. Second, it removes many of the scenes that link S to the time of FitD. I have used these scenes as if they were part of the text. Third, it adds a chapter on Popeye’s background, which I have also used. And Fourth, it revises the ending — Lee Goodwin is lynched. Since his fate is left open in the original version, we can consider this to be additional information, and the only major incompatibility that is introduced is what happens to Horace Benbow. In the original version, he returns disillusioned to his wife in Kinston, leaving Goodwin’s appeal to another lawyer to deal with, whereas in the revised version, he knows Goodwin is being lynched. I follow the revised version of events.

The story is set in May and June, but there is some ambiguity as to the year: 1929 or 1930. The former is supported by the fact that in the original version, the events on the night of Popeye’s murder of Red are explicitly said to have taken place on 17 June 1929, that (as Arnold & Trouard 1996 points out) the days of the week are those of 1929, that Virginia du Pre (Aunt Jenny) had not spoken her husband’s name for 67 years after he had been killed in 1862, and by the fact that Faulkner wrote S in early 1929.\footnote{Curiously, this means that be it 1929 or 1930, Faulkner did set the story slightly into the future.} Conversely, the later date is implied by the fact that Horace and Belle are said to have married and moved to Kinston ‘ten years ago’, although those events took place in early 1920. There is also a sense in which, with the revision, Faulkner moved the story a year into the future, since Benbow Sartoris and Virginia du Pre are said to be nine and 89 years old respectively in the original, and ten and ninety in the revised version (but note that in Benbow’s case, both these figures are problematic, as they are given in May, whereas he was born on 5 June 1920).

The specific date of 27 June 1929 and Virginia du Pre’s husband are no longer mentioned in the revised version, but the days of the week are the same as in the original. In any case, I want to make use of the greater amount of biographical information contained in the original version, and not much hinges on the 1930 date (we can accept ‘ten years’ as an approximation), so I have chosen 1929.

Set in September 1909 and January 1910 and told from the perspective of Quentin (III) Compson, but essentially covers the Sutpen and Coldfield families throughout the nineteenth century, through a labyrinth of partially contradictory accounts and reconstructions.

Prequel to FitD, set in 1862–5 and 1873, and through flashbacks, the years in between, and mostly involves the Sartoris family. It consists of seven named sections, originally published as short stories but rewritten for this purpose: Ambuscade, Retreat, Raid, Riposte in Tertio (originally The Unvanquished), Vendée, Skirmish at Sartoris (originally Drusilla) and An Odor of Verbena (not previously published since Faulkner failed to find a magazine).

tU presents at least four continuity problems. In Ambuscade, the news is revealed that Vicksburg and Corinth have fallen to Federate troops. This is problematic in itself, since while Corinth was conquered in May 1862, Vicksburg only fell in July 1863. The later stories make it clear that Ambuscade is set in the Summer of 1862. The fall of Vicksburg is not in itself important for the rest of the plot, what matters more is the presence of Federate troops in the general area (and in particular, passing the Sartoris Place), which seems plausible.

The other contradictions are between FitD and tU. In the former book, it is said that John Sartoris (I) killed the Burdens in 1872, and that he died on 4 August 1876 (a direct citation from is tombstone) after having been shot by someone called Red_law_, whereas in tU, John Sartoris (I) kills the Burdens already in 1865, and dies in October 1873 after being shot by Ben J Red_mond_. Note also that while Virginia du Pre’s arrival from Carolina is placed in 1869 by FitD, tU places this in a January month six months prior to October 1873. But in this case, the year was already revised to 1867 by S. We can probably chalk these changes up to Faulkner wanting the events to better fit into the biography of Bayard Sartoris (II).

Finally, there are a number of characters in FitD that are absent from tU, notably Simon Strother (II) (not to be confused with Simon Strother (I) from tU, either his father or his uncle), said to be present (aged three) when the Sartoris silver is buried\footnote{The claim in FitD that the family is using the same silver in 1919 is hard to square with the events of tU, where Rosa Millard travels to Alabama to retrieve the silver after it is stolen by Federate soldiers, but returns with ten different chests.} and Bayard Sartoris (II)’s two sisters. We can accept their implicit presence in the background of tU, especially since the sisters are said to have been sent to Memphis at the outbreak of the war, and the oldest sister is said to have married in June 1870. The problem that remains unresolved is that one of the sisters is three years younger than Bayard Sartoris (II) whereas tU claims his mother died while giving birth to him.

Sequel to S. Consists of prose text and a play. The play is a sequel to S, set in September and November 1936 and March 1937. The prose text is a history of Jefferson from 1800 to 1951.

Polk 1981 argues that RfaN is in places a purposefully self-contradictory text. Yet beyond that, it also contains a large number of small inconsistencies. Two of the most noticeable — the date of Nancy Mannigoe’s murder of the Stevens’s daughter and the number of years that has passed since S — are fixed in the corrected edition. But many others remain:

• The Stevens’s eldest child Bucky is born within two years of S and so is six years old in March 1937, but he is described as about four.
• The transformation of Jefferson from a Chickasaw trading post into a town named thus is said to occur in the month of July, nearly thirty years after the arrival of its first settlers, somewhere under the turn of the century, which means 1829 at the latest. But the appendix of tSatF strongly suggests it happened in 1833, and there are a number of facts from RfaN that support this. Sutpen is said to have arrived in the Spring of that year, which AA agrees happened in 1833. Louis Grenier died four years later, and he was still alive when the Chickasaw depart for Oklahoma, which, historically, started in 1837, so this implies a date no earlier than 1833. The suggestion that the Chickasaw, whose slaves help with the construction of Jefferson’s first courthouse, be charged with fifteen dollar worth of axle-grease for the wagons to Oklahoma, suggests a date no earlier than 1830, when the Indian Removal Act was signed, and favours a later date. Finally, the fact that the bandits whose escape led to Jefferson’s foundation could have been members of John Murrell’s gang implies it occurred between 1929 and 1934, when Murrel was out of prison and active, with 1929 probably being too early.
• Samuel Habersham’s son is said to marry a granddaughter of Issetibbeha, but she is later described a granddaughter of his sister Mohataha and a daughter of his nephew (her son) Ikkemotubbe.
• The refurbishment of Jefferson’s jail is first said to have been finished before the Courthouse, and then after. The former order is part of a more detailed chronology.
• When Gavin Stevens is first introduced, he is described as a bachelor. But we learn later that he lives together with a woman named Maggy, whom Temple Stevens calls Aunt Maggie, so we must assume this is Gaven’s wife. (It might be his mother, but that would make it Gowan Stevens’s grandmother, whom Temple would not refer to as aunt.)
• John Sartoris (I) arrives in Jefferson from Carolina six years after its foundation, i.e. 1839, with slaves and gear and money. According to FitD, he was born in 1823, which, at sixteen, makes him a bit young. We might say that this invalidates his FitD birth year, especially given that his death year was already moved forward by tU, but that would widen even further the age difference between him and his siblings Bayard (I) and Virginia (both born 1838–9).
• The details of John Sartoris (I)’s venture to construct Jefferson’s railway differ from the more detailed account in tU. In tU, the railway was completed in the Summer of 1872, Sartoris had bought out Ben J Redmond before that and Redmond killed Sartoris in October 1873 in a duel. In RfaN, the railway was only completed by New Year’s 1876, Sartoris bought out Redmond at least a year later and Redmond killed Sartoris the year after that, from an ambush. Another curious detail is that the original third partner, described as someone no one remembered in tU, is revealed to have been the not quite immemorable General Jason Lycurgus Compson (II) in RfaN.
• While the appendix of tSatF claims that the original square mile of land constituting Compson Place was still intact in 1840, RfaN asserts that in the years after 1833, the town had to buy a piece of it because the first formal survey revealed that it encompassed what was to become the town square.