Reading Order
Go Down MosesWilliam Faulkner Go Down Moses Reading Order
William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses (1942) is his most unified linked story collection — seven stories about the McCaslin family and their descendants (both white and Black) across generations in Yoknapatawpha County, organized around the themes of race, land ownership, hunting, and the moral burden of Southern history. The title story and 'The Bear' (the novella-length central story) are among the greatest sustained pieces of American prose fiction in the twentieth century.
Where to start
The Sound and the Fury
Complete Go Down Moses Book List
- 1Buy
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner·1929·Read The Sound and the Fury first — essential grounding in Yoknapatawpha and Faulkner's narrative method before approaching Go Down, Moses; the Compson family's disintegration establishes the social and formal world that Go Down, Moses develops. - 2Buy
Light in August
William Faulkner·1932·The most accessible major Faulkner novel — the best entry point if The Sound and the Fury proves too difficult; the stories of Joe Christmas and Lena Grove establish the moral concerns that Go Down, Moses develops through the McCaslin family. - 3Buy
Go Down, Moses
William Faulkner·1942·The destination — Faulkner's most concentrated treatment of race, inheritance, and Southern history; "The Bear" is the central piece and one of the great American prose works of the 20th century; best read after the earlier Faulkner establishes the Yoknapatawpha world. - 4Buy
Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner·1936·The companion piece to Go Down, Moses in the Yoknapatawpha cycle — both approach the history of race and inheritance in the South, but from different angles; Absalom is organized around Thomas Sutpen's dynasty, Go Down, Moses around the McCaslin family lineage. - 5Buy
The Known World
Edward P. Jones·2003·Jones's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about Black slaveholders in antebellum Virginia is the most formally Faulknerian of recent American novels, sharing Go Down, Moses's concern with how race and inheritance interact across generations in the American South.
Go Down Moses — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Go Down, Moses a novel or a short story collection?
The question is genuine — Faulkner himself vacillated, first publishing it as 'Go Down, Moses and Other Stories' and later insisting that the 'and Other Stories' be removed from the title. The seven stories share characters, settings, and themes, and several are directly linked in narrative time, but they were written as separate pieces and can be read individually. Most critics now treat it as a unified novel in the same way they treat Winesburg, Ohio or The Things They Carried — formally a story collection, thematically a novel.
What is "The Bear" about?
'The Bear' — the novella-length fourth section of Go Down, Moses — is about the annual hunting trips to the wilderness that the young Ike McCaslin takes with the older men of the community, organized around the attempt to kill a legendary ancient bear named Old Ben. As Ike grows up, the story becomes about what the wilderness means and what its destruction signifies — the displacement of the natural world by commerce and settlement — and culminates in the fourth part's dense, difficult meditation on American history and the sin of slavery as embedded in the McCaslin family ledgers.
Do I need to read all of Faulkner before Go Down, Moses?
No — but some Faulkner is strongly recommended. Go Down, Moses is most fully intelligible to readers who have at least read Light in August (for the Yoknapatawpha setting and social world) or The Sound and the Fury (for the narrative method). Readers who come to Go Down, Moses cold often find 'The Bear' in particular very difficult. The sequence Light in August → The Sound and the Fury → Absalom, Absalom! → Go Down, Moses gives the best preparation, but Light in August alone is sufficient for most readers to appreciate what Go Down, Moses is doing.
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