Sound and the Fury (Random House)

"The Sound and the Fury, " first published in 1929, is perhaps Faulkner's greatest book. It was immediately praised for its innovative narrative technique, and comparisons were made with Joyce and Dostoyevsky, but it did not receive popular acclaim until the late forties, shortly before Faulkner received the Nobel Prize for Literature. The novel reveals the story of the disintegration of the Compson family, doomed inhabitants of Faulkner's mythical Yoknapatawpha County, through the interior monologues of the idiot Benjy and his brothers, Quentin and Jason. This edition follows the text corrected in 1984 aby Noel Polk and corresponds as closely as possible to Faulkner's original intentions. Included also is the Appendix that Faulkner wrote for "The Portable Faulkner" in 1946, which he called the "key to the whole book."