Original Primitive Folk Art Painting These little treasures are on staple free canvas with the sides painted black so there is no need to frame. This collection of "Literary Greats" paintings are perfect for book shelves, desks or just about anywhere. Portrait of William Faulkner (1897–1962) "All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible." - William Faulkner William Faulkner was one of America's most innovative novelists. In a career lasting more than three decades, Faulkner published 19 novels, more than 80 short stories, 2 books of poems, and numerous essays. He was born in New Albany, Mississippi on September 25, 1897 and lived most of his life in Oxford. Faulkner received the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, and two of his novels, A FABLE (1954) and THE REIVERS (1962), each won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. When Faulkner delivered his Nobel Prize speech, no one could understand what he said he stood too far from the microphone, and his Southern accent and rapid delivery made it even more difficult to understand what he was saying. But when they discovered what he said the next morning, the impact was tremendous. For years afterward, according to one scholar, Faulkner's speech would be recalled as the best speech ever given at a Nobel dinner. On the morning of July 6, 1962, after twenty days of suffering from back injury, Faulkner died of an unexpected heart attack. He was buried in St. Peter's Cemetery of Oxford.