The Sound and the Fury
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Limited to 1,480 copies.
Your price: $345.00 |
Read the press coverage from the Guardian Review, Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer and LA Times.
The Sound and the Fury
The Sound and The Fury is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces of 20th-century literature. It takes the modernist narrative devices of stream-of-consciousness, time-shifts and multiple changes of viewpoint to an unprecedented level of sophistication. Faulkner was well aware that readers would find it difficult, and employed italic and roman type to convey its ‘unbroken-surfaced confusion’, but when his agent attempted to standardise and simplify the system this prompted an angry objection from Faulkner. He quickly jotted down eight time-levels in Benjy’s section, ‘just a few I recall’, and wished that it could be ‘printed the way it ought to be with different color types’, but he concluded pessimistically, ‘I don’t reckon … it’ll ever be printed that way’.
The Folio Society determined that it could be printed that way, and drew on the expertise of two noted Faulkner scholars to work on fulfilling Faulkner’s idea. Stephen M. Ross and Noel Polk undertook the painstaking task of identifying each different time-level to be coloured, while keeping the original italic/roman shifts. We can never know if this is exactly what Faulkner would have envisaged, but the result justifies his belief that coloured inks would allow readers to follow the strands of the novel more easily, without compromising the ‘thought-transference’ for which he argued so passionately.
A new reading experience
Faulkner enthusiasts will derive an exhilarating experience from reading the Benjy section in this way, while anyone who may have been daunted by the book’s reputation will find this edition extremely approachable. As well as the colour scheme, Ross and Polk’s comprehensive commentary elucidates the numerous allusions, colloquialisms and ambiguities of the text. A specially developed bookmark is printed with a colour key and marked with the line numbers to assist cross-reference between the novel and the commentary.
In the novel’s four sections, each attributed a specific date, different narrators evoke the disintegration and decay of a once-proud Southern family. The book begins on a spring day in April 1928, with events recounted from the point of view of Benjy, a man in his 30s but with the mind of a small child. For Benjy each sight, word or action in the present propels him through his memories – his beloved sister Caddy as a little girl, his grandmother’s funeral, Caddy on her wedding day, arguments at the dinner table. The narrative shuttles back and forth through time, often evoking a scene in only a few lines. Through Benjy’s uncomprehending observation we gain a picture of a family in freefall, from wealth to poverty, from pride to shame, and from love to bitter division. As the book progresses we learn more – first through the eyes of Quentin (haunted, unhappy), then through Jason (spiteful, filled with resentment), and finally centring on Dilsey, the servant whose loyalty and faith is all that holds the household together.
In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Faulkner stated that a writer’s sole purpose was to convey ‘the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed – love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.’ The Sound and the Fury is filled with those emotions, and the reader cannot help but care deeply for Faulkner’s characters: for Quentin begging his sister not to marry ‘that blackguard’ Herbert Read, for the bleak self-centred cry of Mrs Compson, ‘I am a lady,’ and for Benjy waiting by the golf course just to hear the golfers call ‘caddie’, at which he begins to howl, mistaking it for his sister’s name.
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A commentary volume that represents the best of Faulkner scholarship
Stephen M. Ross and Noel Polk are two of the most respected Faulkner scholars working today. Together they compiled a line-by-line commentary and glossary, informed by their deep love for the text. Whether unpicking Mr Compson’s Latin jokes, or the biblical allusions in Reverend Shegog’s sermon, the commentary provides thought-provoking assistance, but is careful never to impose any single ‘correct’ reading. This edition of the commentary volume has endpapers which show facsimiles of the letter written by Faulkner in which he proposes the coloured-ink printing, and the original typescript of the first pages. The authors have also written a new introduction for the commentary, explaining the difficulties, doubts and excitement of the colorisation project.
In October 1928, the young writer William Faulkner tossed a recently completed manuscript to his friend and agent Ben Wasson: ‘Read this, Bud. It’s a real son-of-a-bitch … This one’s the greatest I’ll ever write.’ Twenty years and several great novels later, Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his 'powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American Novel'. The Sound and the Fury – searing, tragic, extraordinary in its innovation – is the most powerful of all. Indeed, this novel had become one of the most influential in 20th-century American literature.
Faulkner knew that what made the book ‘a real son-of-a-bitch’ was what Wasson called ‘the sheer technical outrageousness and freshness of the Benjy section’. Faulkner wished to find a publisher whose attitude to printing matched the innovation of the writing – one prepared to print the novel in several colours. Nearly 100 years later, The Folio Society is fulfilling that vision with a new limited edition that is a landmark in literary publishing.
Binding Design
The binding design is by Russell Maret, an outstanding typographer and fine press printer based in New York. The sides are printed letterpress on Canson Mi-Teintes paper with a type ornament devised by Maret exclusively for this edition. The leather quarter-binding employs an unusual technique using split boards at front and back so that the paper sides can wrap around all four edges of the boards. The slipcase is inset with a matching red leather titling label on the spine, so that the box can be stored on the shelf without exposing the vermilion leather of the book’s spine to potential sun-fading or damage.
Read more about the life and work of William Faulkner
- Strictly limited to 1,480 copies, numbered by hand.
- Printed on Abbey Wove paper using 14 different colours of ink.
- Gilded top edge.
- Quarter-bound in vermilion goatskin leather.
- Blocked in gold.
- Paper sides printed letterpress with type ornaments designed by Russell Maret.
- 320 pages.
- Book size: 10¼" x 6½"
- Commentary volume bound in buckram.
- Blocked in gold.
- 232 pages.
- Both volumes presented in cloth-bound slipcase with inset leather titling label.
To assist the reader, a bookmark is supplied with all colors and their matching dates, as well as line numbers marked along one side to facilitate cross-referencing between the text and commentary.
Nearly two years ago, I received a letter from one of our members, Leopold Green, which contained a fascinating publishing proposal. Quoting from Faulkner's correspondence, he outlined the idea of an edition of The Sound and the Fury printed in coloured inks to differentiate the complex strands of the narrative. Although Faulkner had wished for such an edition, he clearly had never expected it to be fulfilled, and Mr Green wondered whether we were up for the challenge. Not only has The Sound and the Fury never appeared in coloured inks before, but to the best of my knowledge, no book has ever been printed in this way, so the challenge was considerable - and irresistible!
Mr Green helpfully directed us towards two leading Faulkner scholars, Stephen M. Ross and Noel Polk. Ross and Polk had co-authored a magnificently scholarly work on The Sound and the Fury, and it was quickly decided that we would republish a version of this as the commentary for our edition. There ensued a lengthy and good-humoured correspondence about the feasibility of the colourisation project, airing numerous issues: was it possible to distinguish the narrative strands in this way? If so, how many strands are there? Should we use coloured inks for just Benjy's narrative, or should we treat Quentin's narrative the same way, or even the whole book? What - if any - should be the logic of the colour selection? If Benjy's section were printed in colours, should we retain the use of italic passages which in other editions are the only typographic indicators of time shifts?
Once all these issues had been resolved, work could proceed with typesetting. Quite apart from the colours, Faulkner's text is a minefield for the designer, with highly idiosyncratic yet extremely precise requirements for spacing and punctuation. The selection of colours was then arrived at by scientifically selecting combinations of process inks to give the widest spread of legible shades (obviously pale colours are less easy to read). Science then gave way to pragmatism, as each colour was tested alongside all the others to ensure they were clearly distinct. These were viewed by several different people and it was interesting to see how much people's colour vision can vary - colours which looked very distinct to one person were to another almost indistinguishable. Finally we applied them to the text itself and it was amazing how effective this presentation was, the story lines emerging clearly from the confusion of Benjy's mind. And - by pure chance - lovely effects occurred: at the end of a page of deep orange, Benjy's mind suddenly jumps back to an earlier incident with Caddie, and a single, poetic line appears in green: 'She smelled like trees.'
Meanwhile, work was proceeding on the commentary volume, significantly restructured for this edition to accommodate the text colourisation. The commentary is a fascinating book in its own right, an Aladdin's cave of literary allusion and contemporary reference which hugely enriches one's experience of Faulkner's work. The Shakespeare quotation in the title is obvious, but the number of other authors and works co-opted by Faulkner is astonishing - from S. T. Coleridge to T. S. Eliot, Walter Scott to Ernest Hemingway, the Bible to Native American folklore - and having this volume to hand significantly expanded my own reading of the work.
How to devise a suitable binding had me foxed for a long time, until I had the good fortune to meet the American designer Russell Maret at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair. Russell had just published a scrumptious volume of type specimens with an exquisite quarter-binding of vermillion leather, with paper sides printed letterpress with a pattern of type ornaments. I resisted temptation for at least half an hour before deciding I had to buy this book. Gazing at it, and pondering Faulkner, I realised that the problem was solved. Russell was happy that his idea should be used for so noble a purpose, and insisted on designing new ornaments exclusively for our book. I should point out that the style of the quarter binding is most unusual, and is only possible with hand-made cases.
I for one am greatly looking forward to the arrival of the finished copies, and the opportunity to read the book again in a totally new light. I hope that you too will treat yourself to this pleasure - whether you are a Faulkner aficionado or a novice like myself I am sure you will derive huge satisfaction from it.
Yours sincerely
Joe Whitlock Blundell
Production Director
P. S. The first 1,000 copies are available at a special launch price, so I recommend you order swiftly.
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Review by ajmcg on 15th Jul 2012
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"First, the positives: this book is made with Folio's high standards of production, and represents a milestone in presenting Faulkner's work, in that it takes up Faulkner's suggestion of indicating tim..." [read more]
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