By Michael Hall
To celebrate the recent addition of facsimiles of original William Faulkner manuscripts, the UC Santa Barbara library last week displayed a few of the volumes at an event where five undergraduate scholars in the English department presented their research, all of whom utilized the literary papers.
The 44 volumes of facsimiles — exact or high-quality copies — of original hand-written and typed manuscripts from renowned author William Faulkner, are now housed in the library’s Special Research Collections.
The set includes manuscripts for The Sound and The Fury, Light in August, As I Lay Dying, and other major works.
The acquisition is “highly desirable and essential for Faulkner scholars,” said UCSB librarian Jane Faulkner (no relation).
The idea to acquire this collection began in 2018 when Candace Waid, a professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCSB, traveled with a group of graduate students to see a collection of original manuscripts at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia.
The group of UCSB “Faulknerians,” guided by English professor Candace Waid (bottom left), who used the recently acquired Faulkner manuscript facsimiles in their archival research.
While on the trip, Waid learned of the rare set of Faulkner volumes that were originally published in 1986. After returning to Santa Barbara, she asked the library to procure this elusive set of facsimiles. And after nearly two years of hunting and pursuing false leads, the library’s Jane Faulkner, alongside Christian Layow of the library’s Acquisitions and Resource Management department, finally found a pristine, authentic set from a vendor in Ohio.
“I have never spent so much money in my life,” Faulkner said, recounting the process. “It was very exciting!”
The undergraduate researchers who presented their work are Celie Mitchard, Emma Johnson, Brenda Tan, Ryan Watt and Joseph Sweetnam, all of whom are current or former students of the English department.
The facsimiles contributed in some way to each of the students’ original research. During her presentation “Palimpsest Stories: The Ghosts of Omission,” Tan explained how we can understand Faulkner’s composition process by studying the differences between the manuscript version and the final version.
A few of the recently acquired Faulkner manuscript facsimiles on display at the UCSB library.
The manuscript features the standard notation we all know in books — quotation marks, line-exposition formatting, and so on — while the final published version goes against that entirely, appearing almost nonsensically disorganized.
Tan believes that despite its appearance in the final version, the existence of the more fully notated manuscript demonstrates the changes were intentional.
“The text was not birthed from the disordered ravings of a deranged madman,” said Tan, “but instead conceptualized within a detailed framework [so] he was able to maintain a grasp on the form as it morphed into something that became less familiar.”
The student’s research was overseen by Waid, who herself is an avid, self-proclaimed “Faulknerian.”
“I understood that because of their use of these archival materials, the work and discoveries by the students was publishable. Faulkner is known for his difficulty, and that’s what makes these manuscripts so fascinating,” she said. “And it’s more than amusing. It’s somehow addictive — and maybe dangerous.”
Michael Hall is a fourth year Film and Media Studies Major. He is a Web and Social Media Intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.