“I’d no idea Faulkner was in that bad shape and very happy you are putting together the Portable of him. He has the most talent of anybody and he just needs a sort of conscience that isn’t there. Certainly if no nation can exist half free and half slave no man can write half whore and half straight. But he will write absolutely perfectly straight and then go on and on and not be able to end it. I wish the christ I owned him like you’d own a horse and train him like a horse and race him like a horse—only in writing. How beautifully he can write and as simple and as complicated as autumn or as spring.”
Letter to Malcolm Cowley, 1945
Selected Letters, pg. 603-604

This book is pure greatness. All the best of Faulkner rolled into one easy-to-carry volume. If you are too cheap to buy all of Faulkner's novels, at least buy this one. You will not regret it. ( )