1962, 1st edition; Random House publishers, New York; hardbound with red boards and gilt lettering on cover and spine; quite good condition with the original red shading of page edges along top edge; dust jacket has some small tears (see pic) and edge roughness.
Description -
The Reivers: A Reminiscence, published in 1962, is the last novel by the American author William Faulkner. The bestselling novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1963. Faulkner previously won this award for his book A Fable, making him one of only three authors to be awarded it more than once. Unlike many of his earlier works, it is a straightforward narration and eschews the complicated literary techniques of his more well known works.
It is a picaresque novel, and as such may seem uncharacteristically lighthearted given its subject matter. For these reasons, The Reivers is often ignored by Faulkner scholars or dismissed as a lesser work. He previously had referred to writing a "Golden Book of Yoknapatawpha County" with which he would finish his literary career. It is likely that The Reivers was meant to be this "Golden Book". The Reivers was adapted into a 1969 film directed by Mark Rydell and starring Steve McQueen as Boon Hogganbeck.
Plot -
The basic plot of The Reivers takes place in the first decade of the 20th century. It involves a young boy named Lucius Priest (a distant cousin of the McCaslin/Edmonds family Faulkner wrote about in Go Down, Moses) who accompanies a family friend, employee and protegé named Boon Hogganbeck to Memphis, where Boon hopes to woo into marriage a prostitute called "Miss Corrie", of whom he is a client when he can afford it. Since Boon has no way to get to Memphis, he steals (reives, thereby becoming a reiver) Lucius's grandfather's car, the first car in Yoknapatawpha County. They discover that Ned McCaslin, a black man who works with Boon at Lucius's grandfather's horse stables, has stowed away with them (Ned is also a blood cousin of the Priests).
When they reach Memphis, Boon and Lucius stay in the brothel where Miss Corrie lives and works, while Ned disappears into the black part of town. Soon Ned returns, having traded the car for a racehorse...