Southern Classics Library: Faulkner: The Bear: Franklin

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Southern Classics Library: William Faulkner: Go Down, Moses and Other Stories Southern Classics Library FULL leather top-of-the-line edition of William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses and Other Stories, a Limited edition, published in 1983 by Oxmoor House. Bound in an Most Handsome royal blue Moroccan cowhide, the book has marbelized endleaves, satin book marker, hubbed spines, 22 kt. gold gilding on three edges--in near FINE condition. William Faulkner, who lived from 1897-1962, was a descendant of Colonel William Cuthert Falkner, the inspiration for Colonel John Sartoris. He was born in NEW ALBANY, MISSISSIPPI and attended the University of Mississippi. Faulkner served in the RAF in World World I, lived in New Orleans, toured in Europe, but he returned to his native YOKNAPATAWPHA COUNTY where he married Estelle Oldham, fathered a daughter, Jill, and bought his beloved home, Rowan Oak. Faulkner published more than thirty novels and was awarded the coveted NOBEL PRIZE in 1949. In the late 1950s, Faulkner became Writer-in-Residence at the UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA---at Charlottesville. Go Down, Moses is a collection of seven related pieces of short fiction. The most prominent character and unifying voice is that of Isaac McCaslin, "Uncle Ike," who will live to be an old man; "uncle to half a county and father to no one." Originally published in 1942 as Go Down, Moses and Other Stories spans more than a century in the history of the McCaslin family, viewing their hardships and triumphs by examining their daily lives. Its plantation and the fictional Yoknapatawpha County are in Mississippi. The work deals with such issues as slavery and race, the relationship between man and nature, the vanishing wilderness, stewardship versus ownership of land, and property and inheritance. The title refers to the spirutual "Go Down Moses", which draws a comparison between the enslavement of blacks in America and the Jews in Egypt, as is evidenced by Molly(ie) Beauchamp's comments in the final story, where she repeats that her grandson has been "sold to pharaoh". Also not coincidentally, Go Down, Moses is possibly Faulkner's most spiritual book, as shown in the connection to nature and the land in The Old People, The Bear, and Delta Autumn. This volumes includes some of Faulkner's best short fiction: Was, The Fire and the Hearth, and Pantaloon in Black. In "Was" Isaac McCaslin, 'Uncle Ike" is past seventy and is tended to by his cousin, McCaslin Edmonds, grandson of Isaac's father's sister. "The Bear" is the story of Isaac McCaslin and Sam Fathers, the son of a Chickasaw Chief and a negro slave and the best hunter. Sam is given young 'Ike' to mentor in hunting, first by teaching Ike to kill the squirrels and deer and finally to track and observe 'Old Ben,' the legendary bear of the Delta. The reader also meets Major de Spain, Thomas Sutpen, General Compson, the Negro, 'Tennie's Jim' and the poor white trash, represented by 'Boon'---who stabs Old Ben. As Isaac grows older, he becomes an expert hunter and woodsman, and continues going with the hunting parties every year. The group becomes increasingly preoccupied with hunting Old Ben, a monstrous, almost immortal bear that wreaks havoc throughout the forest. Old Ben's foot was maimed in a trap, and he seems impervious to bullets. Isaac learns to track Old Ben, but it is useless to hunt him because all the hounds are afraid of him. Sam Fathers, who teaches Isaac Old Ben's ways, says that it will take an extraordinary dog to bring Old Ben down. Isaac sees Old Ben several times. Once, they send a tiny fyce-dog with no sense of danger after him, and Isaac even has a shot at the huge bear. But instead of taking it, he runs after the fyce and dives to save him from the bear. He looks up at Old Ben looming over him and remembers the image from his dreams about the bear. At last they find the dog capable of bringing Old Ben to bay: Lion, a huge, wild Airedale mix with extraordinary courage and savagery. Sam makes Lion semi-tame by starving him until he will allow himself to be touched; soon, Bo... read more

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