He apparently went straight to his manuscript and changed the working title of "Dark House" to "Light in August."ĭating the Story: We have dated events in the present tense of the novel in August 1932.
Joseph Blotner provides the most credible explanation for the genesis of the novel’s title: in August 1931, Faulkner and his wife, Estelle, were enjoying a drink on the east porch of their home, and she commented that the quality of the evening light in August seemed somehow different than at other times of the year. The Library of America text was reprinted in paperback by Vintage International in 1990, and we have used that edition in our digitized work on the novel. In 1985, Noel Polk’s corrected text of the novel appeared with an introduction and notes by Joseph Blotner (Library of America). The first of many subsequent reprintings was the 1950 Modern Library edition. Following the issue of Malcolm Cowley’s Portable Faulkner (1946) and the award to Faulkner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1950), his literary stock began to rise. By 1944, like all of Faulkner’s novels except Sanctuary, it was out of print. It was published on 6 October 1932, in a run of 8500 copies with a second printing of 2500 to follow shortly. Light in August, Faulkner’s seventh novel and the fourth set in Yoknapatawpha, was written in about six months’ time, from 17 August 1931 to 19 February 1932.
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