Intruder in the Dust

New York; Random House, 1948 First edition, first printing. Publisher's black cloth, titles in gilt and blue to front board and spine; in its original dust jacket designed by E. McKnight Kauffer, with churchyard illustration to front panel, lettered in white, blue, and yellow. Very good book with a few light spots of soiling to boards, some dimming to spine gilt, front board gilt still bright, minor wear to spine ends, and a bit of offsetting to endpapers; very good price-clipped dust jacket with light toning to extremities, minor wear to spine ends, and shallow chip to top edge of front panel. Overall, a tight and pleasing copy. Petersen A26.2. In Intruder in the Dust, Faulkner uses a murder mystery to explore the larger theme of race relations in the American South. Like many of his novels, it is set in Jefferson, the seat of the fictional Yoknapatawpha County in Mississippi, based on Faulkner's childhood experiences in Oxford. Specifically, it tells the story of Lucas Beauchamp, an elderly African American famer, who is accused of murdering a white man. When a growing mob threatens to lynch Beauchamp, sixteen-year-old Chick Mallison, who had long sought to repay a debt to Beauchamp for kindness he received in the past, works with two fellow townspeople to clear the accused's name. Although he won for his entire body of work rather than this novel alone, Intruder in the Dust helped Faulkner achieve the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949.. First Edition. Very Good/Dust Jacket Included.