The LOC.GOV Wise Guide : Have You Been to Yoknapatawpha County?

If you have, then you visited through the pages of the extraordinary writer William Faulkner. Yoknapatawpha County was the creation of this 20th century Southern author, and most of the novels and stories he wrote throughout his career are set in this mythical place in Mississippi, Faulkner's birthplace. Although this county geographically defined his work, his themes were universal in scope, and his style ushered in an era of experimental writing in America.

Faulkner was born in 1897 and died in 1962. The Today in History Web site for Sept. 25 marks his birth date. Today in History offers fascinating facts about events on each day in history, richly illustrated with materials from the Library. The Archives section will let you learn what happened in history on your birth date.

American Memory has a rich collection of photographs of the Mississippi landscape that inspired Faulkner's fiction. To find similar images from the 1930s and 1940s, search the collection "FSA/OWI Black and White Photography, 1935-1945" on keywords such as cotton, sharecropper, tenant or farmer.

Search on the keywords Oxford, Mississippi, in "Built in America" to see examples of Lafayette County, Miss., architecture, including Rowan Oak, the home of William Faulkner, and other buildings.

A. Carl Van Vechten, photographer. Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction information: Reproduction Nos.: LC-DIG-ppmsca-10445 DLC (digital file from original photograph), LC-USZ62-110952 DLC (b&w film copy neg.); Call No.: LOT 12735, no. 369

B. Rowan Oak, Old Taylor Road, Oxford, Lafayette County, Miss. Alternate Title: William Faulkner House. Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction information: Call Number: HABS MISS,36-OXFO,9-