As I Lay Dying

William Faulkner

May 2011 · Vintage

About this ebook

A true 20th-century classic from the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Sound and the Fury: the famed harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother.

As I Lay Dying is one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama. Narrated in turn by each of the family members, including Addie herself as well as others, the novel ranges in mood from dark comedy to the deepest pathos. 

“I set out deliberately to write a tour-de-force. Before I ever put pen to paper and set down the first word I knew what the last word would be and almost where the last period would fall.” —William Faulkner on As I Lay Dying

This edition reproduces the corrected text of As I Lay Dying as established in 1985 by Noel Polk.

Ratings and reviews

Had to read it for English. I stayed confused half the time, even reading Sparknotes. I am convinced his parents paid someone to publish this awful book.

It was definitely stylistically interesting, but I couldn't get into the story. It was too strange the way it jumped perspectives during the telling.

It was a good book. It keeps you completely lost and then it just all clicks together at the end. I really don't like the point of the book, but I'd have to say it is a good read.

About the author

WILLIAM CUTHBERT FAULKNER was born in 1897 and raised in Oxford, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life. One of the towering figures of American literature, he is the author of The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, and As I Lay Dying, among many other remarkablebooks. Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1950 and France’s Legion of Honor in 1951. He died in 1962.