William Faulkner Trivia Quiz

Answer: September 25, 1897

William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi. He was the son of Murry Cuthbert Faulkner and Maud Butler.

Answer: Oxford, Mississippi

The Faulkner family settled in Oxford, Mississippi in 1902. Oxford was the primary place of residence for William Faulkner for most of his life.

Answer: Rowan Oak

William Faulkner purchased the antebellum house Rowan Oak in 1930. His family resided at Rowan Oak for over forty years. This property was purchased by the University of Mississippi in 1972 to promote Faulkner's literary heritage.

Answer: Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi

The setting for many William Faulkner novels was Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. The word Yoknapatawpha is derived from two Chickasaw words-Yocona and petopha, meaning "split land." Yoknapatawpha was the original name for the Yocona River, a tributary of the Tallahatchie River which runs through part of Faulkner's home county of Lafayette County, Mississippi.

A map of Yoknapatawpha County is shown at the end of Faulkner's novel "Absalom, Absalom!"

Answer: 1949

William Faulkner won the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature for his "powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel." He released his novel "Intruder in the Dust" the year prior to his Nobel Prize nomination. He accepted this award at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden in 1950.

Answer: The Sound and the Fury

William Faulkner's 1929 novel "The Sound and the Fury" was centered around a Southern family named the Compsons. The story was four different narratives viewing the decline of the Southern aristocratic Comspon family.

Answer: Yes

William Faulkner won a Pulitzer Prize and a U.S. National Book Award for his novel "A Fable" in 1955. He also was posthumously the Pulitzer Prize his novel "The Reivers" in 1963.

Answer: Pylon

"Pylon" was a novel written by William Faulkner about a group of barnstormers from the fictional town of New Valois. "Pylon" was a rare novel written by Faulkner which was not set in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi.
The "Snopes Trilogy" is a series of three novels written by William Faulkner centered around the fictional Snopes family of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. The "Snopes Trilogy" consists of novels "The Hamlet," "The Town," and "The Mansion." The trilogy began in 1940 and completed in 1959.
Since "Pylon" was neither set in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi nor about the fictional Snopes family, this novel was not part of Faulner's "Snopes trilogy."

Answer: Intruder in the Dust

In 1949, MGM released a film version of William Faulkner's 1948 novel "Intruder in the Dust." The film was directed by Clarence Brown and starred David Brian and Claude Jarman, Jr.

Answer: July 6, 1962

William Faulkner died on July 6, 1962 at at Wright's Sanitorium in Byhalia, Mississippi. He died from a heart problem caused by an earlier horse riding accident.