Magazine Illustrations

The first visualizations of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha fictions were the illustrations drawn to accompany the publication of his short stories in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post, Scribner's and Collier's, the large circulation periodicals that Faulkner regularly submitted work to in his quest for income. Although Faulkner occasionally worked directly with the magazines' editors to revise a story, there is no evidence that he had any control over - or even interest in - the way these magazines illustrated his texts. The illustrations can, however, help us appreciate the way Faulkner's world, and the people of different races and classes who inhabit it, appeared to his original readers.

The following items are drawn from the William Faulkner Foundation Collection at the University of Virginia's Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library (http://small.library.virginia.edu/).
Click on any image to see an enlargement.

The illustrations for the magazine publication of this story (later revised for inclusion in The Hamlet) were drawn for the Post by J. Clinton Shepherd. They emphasize the eccentricities of rural Southern culture: Uncle Dick, the old recluse who dowses for buried treasure (below left); and the audience of neighbors who watch Henry Armstid frantically digging for it (below right).

   

      Citing this source:
Stephen Railton, "Illustrating 'Lizards in Jamshyd's Courtyard,'" Digital Yoknapatawpha, University of Virginia, http://faulkner.drupal.shanti.virginia.edu/node/16304?canvas   (Date added to project: 2018)
Illustrations © The Saturday Evening Post.