Everyone who reads or ever has read Faulkner has been confused by something. The long sentences, the elaborate syntax, the terrifying action, the obscure pronoun references: saying that his technique and style are difficult and his themes daunting seems like merely stating the obvious. The only way out of such confusion is to go through it. No shortcuts, no substitutes exist for the act of reading Faulkner; but reading Faulkner will teach you how to read Faulkner well. What follows in these pages therefore merely tries to sketch the parameters of his work and to point to areas of reflection on and discussion of this most challenging yet rewarding of modern writers.

Most of Faulkner's body of work is set primarily in the mythological county of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi. Of the nineteen novels, only five are set elsewhere, and even these sometimes touch its borders: Soldiers' Pay, Mosquitoes, Pylon, If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem (The Wild Palms), and A Fable. The chronology of his major published work reads as follows:

1. 1919 First published poem, “L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune,” in The New Republic; first published short story, “Landing in Luck,” in The Mississippian

2. 1924 The Marble Faun (poetry)

3. 1926 Soldiers' Pay (novel)

4. 1927 Mosquitoes (novel)

5. 1929 Sartoris (novel); The Sound and the Fury (novel)

6. 1930 As I Lay Dying (novel)

7. 1931 Sanctuary (novel); These 13 (short stories)

8. 1932 Light in August (novel)

9. 1933 A Green Bough (poetry)

10. 1934 Doctor Martino and Other Stories (short stories)

11. 1935 Pylon (novel)

12. 1936 Absalom, Absalom! (novel)

13. 1938 The Unvanquished (novel)

14. 1939 If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem (The Wild Palms) (novel)

15. 1940 The Hamlet (novel)

16. 1942 Go Down, Moses (novel)

17. 1946 The Portable Faulkner (compendium)

18. 1948 Intruder in the Dust (novel)

19. 1949 Knight's Gambit (short stories and a novella)

20. […]