"Pantaloon in Black" (Text Key 2089)

"Pantaloon in Black" first appeared in Harper's Magazine in October of 1940, earning Faulkner $400 for his efforts. In 1942 he republished it as the third chapter, or story, in Go Down, Moses. While some of the eight previously published stories were radically revised for use in the novel, he made almost no changes to the magazine version of Rider's story. The early version included both references to the McCaslin family narrative - Rider's renting a home from Edmonds and his attempts to imitate Lucas Beauchamp's ever-burning hearth fire - but Faulkner did nothing more in the later version to incorporate it into the McCaslin narrative that so many critics have cited as the dominant strain of Go Down, Moses. As a result, Rider's story stands as something of a thematic puzzle in the middle of Go Down, Moses. It later resurfaces, through the musings of Temple Drake Stevens, in Requiem for a Nun (1951). Our representation of the story follows the version published in the Random House Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner, edited by Joseph Blotner.

References: Skei, Hans L. Reading Faulkner’s Best Short Stories (University of South Carolina Press, 1999); Creighton, Joanne V. William Faulkner’s Craft of Revision: The Snopes Trilogy, The Unvanquished and Go Down, Moses (Wayne State University Press, 1977).