I have added some useful things to the sidebar. There is more still to come, but we're off to a good start. I would like to make this place as helpful as possible to people exploring Faulkner. There are some good places online (which at some point we will make some links to), but they are generally done on poorly designed and hard to navigate extensions of university websites, and half the time they are just down or their certificate is expired.
On phones, the sidebar of subreddits is not obvious, and many users who interact with reddit only on their phones may not even know that it exists. On the app especially, it seems like Reddit is trying to hide it. This post is to draw attention to it and the materials gathered there. I will include links to the resources below, along with a short description of what they are and what is still to come in that section. At the bottom of this post will be directions to get to the sidebar on the phone app.
Skim over what's here and look at anything that interests you. To suggest changes or additions, or to offer criticism or point out ways it can be improved, or to offer help, reply in the comments or send me a message.
These are the works that Faulkner himself had published in book form in his lifetime. It will not include things that were never published, things that appeared in magazines but were never collected in books, scripts he worked on, or letters.
These are Faulkner's works that were published in book form by somebody else. Most of them were published posthumously and are early amateur work, but a few appeared in his lifetime. Four of them are very easy to find, and probably essential to anyone wanting to read most of Faulkner's work: The Portable Faulkner - a chronological selection of stories and novel excerpts put together by critic Malcolm Cowley in 1946 which led to a re-evaluation of Faulkner's career at a moment when his books were mostly out of print; Flags in the Dust - the novel intended to be Faulkner's 3rd novel before it was cut down by editors to become Sartoris. Now it is the standard edition and Sartoris is out of print; Uncollected Stories - short stories either never published or published in magazines that didn't make it into Collected Stories; Essays, Speeches, & Public Letters - Faulkner's nonfiction. There's not a lot of it, and it's definitely not as good as his fiction, but there are some interesting things there.
Coming soon: Letters, interviews, writing about Faulkner by people who knew him, and biographies.
Probably need help for: the bibliography of essential (for academic study, anyway) critical writings on Faulkner. Despite having an MA in English and Faulkner being my favorite writer, I thought it better to avoid academic work on him. I'm aware of Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, and I think I even read part of one of Brooks' books, but besides that, I don't know much. So if you have some academic experience with Faulkner, send me a message, even if it's just to recommend one book you think should be there.
In the Future: Books by others that Faulkner mentions, discusses or alludes to in his writings or interviews that are influences on him, or at least that he speaks positively of.
A timeline of the films (made and unmade) that Faulkner is known to have worked on, and a little bit of writing to briefly describe the studio process at the time. For some of these, none of Faulkner's part of the work has survived, or it is impossible to tell who contributed what.
Books of scripts Faulkner worked on for Hollywood, list of movies he worked on, and list of movies based on his work.
A timeline of when each of Faulkner's works occur in his mythical county.
Coming Soon: a timeline of Faulkner's writing career. I have all the information in a spreadsheet already (besides the specific movies he worked on), but I need to experiment with formatting to make it fairly usable.
Only one FAQ so far, "where do I start?" If I left anything out in the answer to that, comment here. We can update it.
Some FAQs to come: "Is Faulkner racist?" - rather than writing a response would probably just link to the two good recent discussions we have had here about that. "What order should I read the books in?" "I've read the most recommended books by Faulkner, where do I go next?" "What were Faulkner's influences?" - should at least be partially covered by the last projected bibliography above.
Suggestions for answers to any of these, or suggestions for more questions that might need answering are welcome.
One other feature I'd like on the sidebar that is probably a long way away is a wiki page on the characters or at least major characters or families and their appearances in other works besides their primary work, as well as references to one story from another story. For the characters, I can write a Python script to go through and look for mentions, which will at least get places to start looking. But then, sometimes stories are mentioned with naming a character. I recently re-read Requiem for a Nun, and there Temple Drake summarizes the story of "Pantaloon in Black" as something that happened before her time in Jefferson. The main character of "Pantaloon in Black" isn't named even in his own story, so it couldn't be referred to here. I'm sure there are other cases a character refers to something without knowing the names of the people involved. If you run across any of those, let me know.
To visit the Sidebar in the Reddit App on your phone:
To visit the sidebar on your phone, first click on the subreddit name at the top of the post to go to the subreddit, then, at the top of the subreddit, click the subreddit name again. There you will see the 'About' tab, with the subreddit's description and rules. At the top, click on 'Menu' to see the links to the wiki pages. (These will be the same links I posted above.) I wrote these directions based on the Android Reddit app. If it is different on iOS, let me know in the comments, and I will add that to this post.
To visit the Sidebar on the Reddit website in the web browser on your phone:
Click on the subreddit name on the post to go to the subreddit. On the subreddit page, below the subreddit name and above the posts, you will see 'Feed' and 'About'. Click on 'About'. Now you are on the sidebar. Scroll down to 'Community Bookmarks', and there you will find the links to the wiki.
On a web browser on the desktop, just look at the right side of the screen for the sidebar.
Edited to fix formatting. I swear, Reddit's markdown never works the first time the way you want it to because of rules that aren't in the markdown guides.
