Overview
Yoknapatawpha County
Quick Reference
Fictional setting in northern Mississippi for the saga of 14 novels and many stories by William Faulkner. Based on Lafayette County and its capital, Oxford, Faulkner's mythical land, whose capital is called Jefferson, has an area of 2400 square miles and a population of 6298 whites and 9313 blacks, according to the map that its creator printed in the 1951 edition of Absalom, Absalom! The name of the county is presumably of Chickasaw derivation, for these Indians, such as Ikkemotubbe, are presented as the original possessors of the land. In order of their publication, the novels set in whole or in part in this land are Sartoris, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, The Unvanquished, The Hamlet, Intruder in the Dust, Knight's Gambit, Requiem for a Nun, The Town, The Mansion, and The Reivers, and the stories set there include “The Bear” and other tales in Go Down, Moses. The characters involved in the life of this land include the Benbow, Compson, De Spain, McCaslin, Sartoris, Snopes, Stevens, Sutpen, and Varner families. (See also individual entries for titles and characters.)
