Reconstructing Faulkner: Project Digitizes Author’s Personal Library

Library, Rowan Oak collaborate to make Nobel Prize winner’s collection available to all

By Clara Turnage

A new University of Mississippi project seeks to share Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner‘s library with the world.

The Department of Archives and Special Collections in the University of Mississippi Libraries is partnering with Rowan Oak to re-create Faulkner’s extensive collection of books, encyclopedias, and novels on a digital platform. The effort will make the noted author’s inspiration available to researchers and avid readers alike.

“This is something we’ve been talking about for years,” said William Griffith, Rowan Oak’s curator. “Visitors often ask, ‘What did Faulkner read?’ It’s interesting to read what he was reading before you start reading him.”

The digital library is an ever-growing site and already contains many contextual essays, an interactive photo timeline of the book spaces, and much more. A 360-degree interactive map of the library at Rowan Oak is also in the works, and an exhibit featuring images of the home’s reading room will be display in the J.D. Williams Library through August.

“The Rowan Oak Library offers a glimpse into Faulkner’s own reading habits, as well as those of many of his family members,” said Jennifer Ford, senior curator of manuscripts at UM Libraries. “It was a family library, which is also so significant.

“We believe the project will continue to offer so much for Faulkner scholars and enthusiasts as the site develops and grows.”

The team recently received a community grant from the Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area to purchase equipment that will help them better archive and display the material.

The shelves at Rowan Oak, Faulkner’s home, once held more than 1,200 books, ranging from classic literature such as Don Quixote to sci-fi and murder mysteries, including several by Agatha Christie.

“We’re going to take our time with this,” said Rachel Hudson, Rowan Oak’s assistant curator. “What we’ve been able to record and contextualize so far is already revealing.”

One discovery in the collection is Faulkner’s copy of George Gershwin’s 1931 biography. In it are three signatures and annotations on the title page. Faulkner’s furnishings – including his books – were returned to Rowan Oak through a donation from Sandra Miller Black, of Madison, in 2019.

Gershwin’s biography is the only book in Rowan Oak’s collection signed by William Faulkner, as the Faulkner family retained all his other signed volumes, Griffith said.

“I looked down one day and realized, ‘I know that handwriting,'” said Ford, who discovered the inscription while cataloging the collection. “It says, ‘William Faulkner, Chapel Hill, N.C., 27 October 1931.’ It was his inscription and signature.”

In 1931, just a year after Faulkner purchased Rowan Oak, he met Milton Abernethy, who later introduced Faulkner to Anthony Buttitta. The three visited a bookstore in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Faulkner showed the two young men a section from his work-in-progress, Light in August.

Buttitta and Abernethy also inscribed messages on the title pages of the book. Buttitta’s inscription reads: “To Bill in memory of a good time and Rhapsody in Blue.”

“We consulted Joseph Blotner’s comprehensive biography, as well as various primary sources, and learned so much about that time in Faulkner’s life,” Ford said. “This book is a perfect encapsulation of that moment in the author’s early writing career.”

Gershwin’s signed biography – and all the history that accompanies it – is just one of the many books in Faulkner’s library, Ford said. For scholars like Jay Watson, Howry Professor of Faulkner Studies, this resource presents a treasure trove of information about the author.

“There are so many levels on which this project is going to enrich our understanding of Faulkner,” Watson said. “That includes the work, of course: we’ll have an opportunity to learn more about the books that his books were in conversation with.

“But I also think we’ll learn some valuable things about the writer himself and the way he perceived, and presented, his relationship to literature and print culture.”

The website is open to the public and will be updated as more volumes are cataloged.