Mosquitoes
William Faulkner’s second novel was inspired by a trip across Lake Pontchartrain.
Mosquitoes (1927), William Faulkner’s second published novel, following Soldiers’ Pay (1926), reflects his experiences in New Orleans’s bohemian art and literary scene of the 1920s. Faulkner had grown up in Oxford, Mississippi; served briefly in World War I; enrolled—but never finished—at the University of Mississippi after the war; and worked for a short while in New York, where he met Elizabeth Prall, who became the third wife of acclaimed writer Sherwood Anderson. The Andersons moved to the French Quarter, and Faulkner, 27, an aspiring poet, looked them up when he arrived in New Orleans early in 1925. He and Sherwood Anderson immediately developed a rapport, with the established author of the classic American short story cycle Winesburg, Ohio (1919) sharing literary advice and steering Faulkner from poetry to fiction. Anderson furthered Faulkner’s literary ambitions by recommending the manuscript of Soldiers’ Pay to his own publisher in New York, Horace Liveright, of Boni and Liveright.
In March 1925 Faulkner participated in a nautical jaunt, organized by Anderson, across Lake Pontchartrain to Mandeville. The party was plagued by engine trouble, stormy weather, and mosquitoes, and it became the basis for Faulkner’s next novel. He used fictitious names to describe his fellow travelers, but many locals recognized themselves or others in Mosquitoes—sometimes to their chagrin.
Faulkner returned to Mississippi following the release of Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles and before Mosquitoes was published. He had lived in New Orleans for less than 16 months and would never call it home again. This first edition of Mosquitoes features its original red and cream book jacket, laid out in a bold art deco design.
By Pamela D. Arceneaux, senior librarian and rare books curator
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