Name at birth: William Cuthbert Falkner William Faulkner wrote short stories, plays and novels beginning in the 1920s. He also wrote screenplays for Hollywood, including the 1944 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. His novels, many of which take place in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, give an almost mythological status to the culture of the southeastern United States. His most famous novels include The Sound and the Fury, As …showed first 75 words of 1301 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1301 total…and the Fury, As I Lay Dying and The Reivers. In 1950 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature (the co-recipient that year was Bertrand Russell). Extra credit: During World War I, when Faulkner was trying to get into the Royal Air Force in Canada (he was too short for the Americans), he changed the spelling of his name so it would look more English. Faulkner did join the RAF, but never made it overseas.