n Oxford"(Volpe 11). Faulkner settled down in Oxford, while he raised his family. He would only go to Hollywood and work on different scripts whenever he was in need of some money. "The Faulkners lost their first child soon after its birth; their second child, also a girl, they named Jill"(Volpe 12). From the early 1930's to the early 1940's Faulkner spent a lot of his time writing. Before the end of 1942, he published seven novels, two collections of short stories, and a book of poems (Volpe 12). Light in August and Absalom, Absalom! were written in this time period. These two novels rank among the greatest novels in contemporary literature. Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 (Volpe 12). As Faulkner was coming to the end of his life, he spoke to the cadets at West Point. In his speech he read from his last novel called "The Reivers, which became, with in a few days of publication, a national best seller"(Volpe 13). Shortly there after, on July 6, 1962, the great author died of a heart attack. Faulkner was known for his realistic novels and true-to-life short stores. From 1926 to 1962, Faulkner published nineteen novels and more than seventy- five short stories. Most of the novels and a good many of the short stories are about the people living in a fictional county in the northern regions of Mississippi called Yoknapatawpha County. The main town in the county is a small town called Jefferson (Volpe 13). "Yoknapatawpha County covers an area of 2,400 square acres and contains, according to Faulkner's count, 6,298 whites and 9,313 Negroes"(Volpe 15). In all of Faulkner's works about the people of this county, he actually identifies around six hundred of them by name. Faulkner uses character and character personalities multiple times in several novels and short stories. For example, "the Negro companion of the aristocratic white boy is named Ringo in The Unvanquished and Alex Sanders in Intruder in the Dust, but th...
