April 16, 2014 /

William Faulkner’s Little-Known Jazz Age Drawings, with a Side of Literary Derision | Brain Pickings

Have you read Maria Popova’s always intriguing “Brain Pickings”? Beautifully written and researched pieces…an eclectic and fascinating collection of essays, often slyly funny… williamfaulknerdrawings7

In 1916, as he was about to turn twenty, Faulkner began contributing poems and sketches to the Mississippian, the literary magazine at Ole Miss — the University of Mississippi, in which he would enroll three years later for a brief three-semester stint before dropping out in 1920. But Faulkner continued to draw for the magazine until 1925 — shortly before he penned the aforementioned little-known children’s book while courting his future wife — even earning small commissions for his drawings, largely inspired by Aubrey Beardsley, bearing that distinct Jazz Age swanky sensibility and reminiscent of Henry Clarke’s sensual 1919 illustrations of Edgar Allan Poe’s tales, with a twinge of Goreyana. The drawings were published only once, in William Faulkner: Early Prose and Poetry (public library; public domain), an out-of-print anthology released months after Faulkner’s death in 1962 by The Atlantic Monthly’s imprint…

Should you be so lucky, you might be able to snag one of the few surviving copies of William Faulkner: Early Prose and Poetry still floating around. Else, there’s always a voyeuristic look back at Faulkner’s other secret talent.

via William Faulkner’s Little-Known Jazz Age Drawings, with a Side of Literary Derision | Brain Pickings.

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Tagsart Books culture illustration Jazz literature out of print vintage William Faulkner

9 Comments

  1. BEAUTYCALYPSE
    April 16, 2014

    I adooooore brain pickings! maria finds fantastic books, and while I’m a very quick reader myself, I’m super happy that she does what she does; I’d never find the time to hunt and to score those treasures myself. never. ever. I also think that her crisp write-ups help a larger audience that otherwise wouldn’t be interested in classic authors.

    • Gallivanta
      April 16, 2014

      Me too. Love Brain Pickings.

      • BEAUTYCALYPSE
        April 17, 2014

        yay! we’re a club!
        she happens to write about some of my favourite writers, that helps too 🙂

      • Gallivanta
        April 17, 2014

        I have to be careful I don’t get lost in Brain Pickings. I could be in there for hours and days.

      • BEAUTYCALYPSE
        April 18, 2014

        exactly! I tend to browse it with my smartphone when I’m somewhere boring, waiting for something boring to finally happen 🙂

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