The Irwin T. and Shirley Holtzman William Faulkner Collection is one of the best in the United States.  Acquired by the Holtzmans over a forty-year period, the collection includes all of Faulkner's first printings--novels, short stories, poetry, essays, articles, collections and anthologies, speeches, screenplays--as well as an impressive array of works by members of his family, critical books about Faulkner, foreign and later editions, tapes and videos, posters and other graphic materials, and much more.  It has been described as one of the most inclusive collections of printed Faulkner available and has been praised for its integrity and condition. When the Holtzmans donated their collection to the University of Michigan in 1989, Mr. Holtzman said, "That's what makes it a library: the comprehensiveness."

It is a great pleasure for the Special Collections Library to share many of these resources by means of an exhibit honoring William Faulkner at the centenary of his birth. Items have been selected in order to tell the story of Faulkner's life and his amazing accomplishment. Readers today look back over the first hundred years, and they are astounded by the quantity, the quality, and the challenge of Faulkner's canon. Some of the work may now be seventy or more years old, but as Gowen Stevens says in Requiem for a Nun, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

The curator would like to acknowledge the guidance in designing the exhibition and writing the catalogue given by the biographical, bibliographical, and interpretive studies of Joseph Blotner, Melvin Backman, Gene D. Phillips, and many other scholars whose works were consulted. Special thanks are extended to John Sokol of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for graciously granting permission to reproduce his artwork, "William Faulkner as The Sound and the Fury." In addition, many thanks go to Library staff members Veronica Woolridge and Mark Chaffee, and to the University's Office of Marketing Communications, particularly Ken Ross, designer of the catalogue. Above all, we gratefully acknowledge the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Holtzman who have sponsored this catalogue's publication; we thank them wholeheartedly.

Kathryn L. Beam
Curator, Humanities Collections
Special Collections Library