Book excerpt: Drawn from the pages of Modern Fiction Studies—with its distinguished tradition of publishing scholarship on William Faulkner—this landmark volume collects nineteen seminal essays that focus on Faulkner’s most popular fiction, reflecting the enduring relevance of his canon. The essays are grouped thematically into four categories—Myth and Religion; Temporality, History, and Trauma; Gender and Race: Affect, the Body, and Identity; and Modernity and Modernist Technique. For ease of use in the classroom, MFS editor John N. Duvall has also included two appendixes. The first is an alternative table of contents that arranges the critiques by major novels. The second appendix lists all of the essays chronologically, and provides a full list of all seventy-three Faulkner essays published by MFSover the years. Duvall’s introduction explains the critical role of MFS in the evolution of Faulkner studies. His organization of the works and his supplementary material provide both students and scholars with a concise overview of Faulkner studies from its New Critical beginnings through its current engagements with theory and history.