8vo. Original black cloth stamped in gold and red, top edges stained red (faint stains on upper cover); dust jacket (spine lightly toned, a few small closed tears near top edge of front panel, tiny chips to spine ends).

FIRST TRADE EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, IN THE FIRST BINDING. INSCRIBED IN PENCIL BY FAULKNER, below his name on the title-page: "William Faulkner, Los Angeles, Calif, 6 March 1944." Throughout his career, Faulkner worked on several Hollywood screen adaptations, spending nearly seven years under contract with Warner Bros. and dividing his time between Oxford and California. On 14 February 1944, he returned to Hollywood after the holidays for what would be nearly a full year of work on the adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. (See Petersen, On the Track of the Dixie Limited, 1979, pp.33-39).

Go Down, Moses, a collection of seven related pieces of short fiction, is sometimes considered a novel. It spans more than a century in the history of the McCaslin family, viewing their hardships and triumphs by examining their daily lives. It is considered by some to be Faulkner's most spiritual book, as shown in the connection to nature and the land in "The Old People," "The Bear," and "Delta Autumn." Peterson A23.2b.