William Faulkner (September 25, 1897- July 6, 1962) was an American author, poet and playwright, he is thought by some to be one of the greatest Southern Gothic writers. Faulkner set many of his works in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Drawing from Faulkner's own home in Lafayette County, Mississippi, Yoknapatawpha County was home to the bitter Civil War defeat and the subsequent social, racial, and economic fractures that followed. Southern Gothic is uniquely rooted in the region’s tensions and aberrations, bringing to light the extent to which the vision of the idyllic South rests on the repression of the region’s historical realities: slavery, racism, and patriarchy. Faulkner, and many other Southern Gothic writers' works explore the the decay of the old South.
The Literature and Rare Books collection holds the William Faulkner papers, which is an archival collection of artificially assembled lesser-known writings by and about Faulkner. Linked below is the finding aid for the collection which gives more detail about the collection.
