Publishes The Hamlet (Snopes trilogy begins).

In 1940, William Faulkner published The Hamlet, the first novel in what would become the Snopes Trilogy—a sprawling, darkly comic examination of greed, social mobility, and moral decay in the post-Civil War American South. The novel introduces readers to the cunning and unscrupulous Flem Snopes, a character who rises from a poor tenant farmer to a powerful figure in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Through Flem and his extended family, Faulkner explores how ambition and corruption infect every layer of Southern society. The Hamlet balances biting satire with Faulkner’s signature narrative depth, using a mix of folklore, grotesque humor, and community gossip to reveal the tensions between old Southern values and new, ruthless opportunism. The novel exposes how the Snopeses, with their disregard for tradition or honor, slowly infiltrate and transform the rural town of Frenchman’s Bend. As the opening act of the trilogy—followed by The Town (1957) and The Mansion (1959)—The Hamlet sets the stage for a generational saga of manipulation, power, and survival in a world where decency is constantly under siege. #MomentsOfLife #MoofLife_Moment #MoofLife #WilliamFaulkner #TheHamlet #SnopesTrilogy #YoknapatawphaCounty #SouthernLiterature #FlemSnopes #ModernAmericanFiction