Snopes: A Trilogy

Here, for the first time published in a single volume as Faulkner always hoped they would be, are the three novels that compose the famous Snopes trilogy, a saga that stands as perhaps the greatest feat of Faulkner's imagination. The Hamlet, the first book of the series chronicling the advent and rise of the grasping Snopes family in mythical Yoknapatawpha County, is a work that Cleanth Brooks called, "one of the richest novels in the Faulkner canon." It recounts how the wily, cunning Flem Snopes uses an exploiter's mentality to dominate the rural community of Frenchman's Bend—and claim the voluptous Eula Varner as his bride. The Town, the second novel, records Flem's ruthless struggle to take over the county seat of Jefferson, Mississippi. The book is rich in typically Faulknerian episodes of humor and profundity and explores love, both sacred and profane. Finally, The Mansion tells of Mink Snopes, whose archaic sense of honor brings about the downfall of his cousin Flem.