The Life of William Faulkner is the result of a remarkable amount of research and is clearly a work of love and respect for its subject and his writing. Its bibliography is 15 pages long, and it's difficult to imagine that anyone interested in Faulkner could require a supplementary reference after the second volume is released.

-- "Washington Independent Review of Books"

[F]or any wanting to travel further into the depths of the wilderness of the man who created Yoknapatawpha County, get this book.

-- "The Heavy Laden Bookshelf"

[M]assive, well-researched two-volume biography.

-- "New York Review of Books"

[Rollyson] suggest[s], tantalizingly, that Faulkner's Hollywood stint affected his novel writing.

-- "Publishers Weekly"

A deeply detailed account of the 1949 Nobel laureate's early life and work.... Throughout, the author, an expert biographer, delivers arresting details and telling images from his subject's life... A filling, satisfying feast for Faulkner aficionados.

-- "Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"

A previously-unpublished, full-length screenplay by 20th-century novelist William Faulkner has been discovered, a murder story so complete experts say it could see him hit Hollywood again.... Professor Carl Rollyson, author of a forthcoming Faulkner biography, spoke of his 'utter excitement' in finding it. He told the Telegraph: 'Nobody knows about it, no film scholar, no Faulkner person.'

-- "The Telegraph"

Carl Rollyson has done a fine job here, bringing together a vast range of source materials, drawing a sharp and convincing portrait of Faulkner. This reads like a good story, and it is. It's a great story, in fact, and all admirers of Faulkner should be grateful.

--Jay Parini, author of One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner

Carl Rollyson is a superb and wondrously prolific biographer, drawn to an admirably eclectic range of subjects, but also a scholar of biography with an unparalleled knowledge of the field.... Acquire the books, install them at your bedside, and make a habit of reading a bit each night. You will quickly find yourself drawn into the saga.

-- "First Things"

Despite Faulkner's objections to biography, he has not lacked for them....[Rollyson], however, is the first to examine all 105 boxes of material that Faulkner authority Carvel Collins collected for his unwritten account of the author. Tracing Faulkner's career through roughly the middle of the journey of his life, Rollyson reveals the impulses of Faulkner's fiction and shows how the author converted his experiences and those of his family and friends into poetry, short stories, and novels.... VERDICT: Rollyson's astute analysis makes not only for a good story but also a welcome addition to Faulkner studies.

-- "Library Journal"

Fresh insight is delivered from Faulkner's earliest years, focusing onhis being raised by "two mothers," and nurtured by late nineteenth-century Mississippi race relations, southern white manhood, and the specificfamily dynamics of the Falkner household.

-- "The Faulkner Journal"

In the richness of factual information, and in his ability to weave facts into absorbing narratives, Rollyson has already proven the importance of his new Faulkner biography. Volume 1 of The Life of Faulkner ends with 1934; it only whets the reader's interest to finish this monumental account, including his exploration of the ways in which Hollywood gave Faulkner both insight and story.

-- "Resources for American Literary Study"

It has now been fifteen years since the publication of the last full-length biography of one of the twentieth century's most important writers, so the moment is ripe for a life of Faulkner with something new to offer readers and scholars. Rollyson has delivered a book that taps into new primary and secondary resources, and that draws on his own unique expertise as a professional biographer. This is a valuable new biography, whose sound, thorough research and judicious interpretive insights make for an appealing, balanced book.

--Jay Watson, University of Mississippi, author of William Faulkner and the Faces of Modernity

Rollyson is especially good at tracing how Faulkner's depictions of race, particularly the fixity of racial categories, change through his great period.

-- "Modernism/Modernity"

Rollyson's analysis of Light in August and his portrayal of Faulkner's 'pivotal' experiences in New Orleans are worth the wait.

-- "CHOICE"

Rollyson's erudite narrative chronicles Faulkner's first thirty-seven years--from his childhood in Oxford to the publishing of masterpieces like The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Light in August--but it also gives careful attention to Faulkner's odd personal foibles (feigning a leg injury he supposedly sustained as a pilot in World War I, for instance--in reality he never took flight) and argues for a greater significance than has been previously acknowledged of his profitable career as a screenwriter in Hollywood.

-- "The New Criterion"

Rollyson's penchant for illuminating evidence left out of previous biographies, for looking closely at what was overlooked--by this method his subtitle is established: nothing is ever done, finished. By pouring over what explains and what "just does not explain," a distinctively Faulknerian way of seeing is applied to the subject himself.

-- "The Faulkner Journal"

The most ambitious and most complete biography of Faulkner so far. Drawing on existing biographies, decades of literary criticism, Hollywood screenplays, and rarely cited archival material, Rollyson constructs a complex, illuminating story.

--David A. Davis, Mercer University

This is the most comprehensive, most accurate, and most revealing biography of Faulkner yet written. Thoroughly and painstakingly researched, it draws upon sources and materials not available to previous biographers. It will almost certainly come to be viewed as the definitive biography of the famous author.

--Robert W. Hamblin, Founding Director, Center for Faulkner Studies