author
William C. (Clark) Falkner
1825–1889
A larger-than-life figure from nineteenth-century Mississippi, he was a soldier, railroad builder, politician, and novelist whose adventures helped shape the family legend later echoed in William Faulkner’s work.
1 Audiobook
The White Rose of Memphis
by William C. (Clark) Falkner
About the author
Born in Tennessee in July 1825 or 1826, he spent much of his life in northern Mississippi and became known as "the Old Colonel." Sources agree that he served in the Civil War, built business and railroad interests, entered politics, and wrote fiction as well as poetry.
He is best remembered in literary history for The White Rose of Memphis, a novel that reportedly sold unusually well for its time. His life was dramatic even by frontier standards, and that mix of violence, ambition, and storytelling helped make him a lasting regional legend.
He was also the great-grandfather of William Faulkner, and his reputation clearly outlived him: biographical sources still point to him as an important influence on the Nobel Prize-winning novelist’s imagination and family mythology.