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The Daily Tar Heel
Pit Talk

Leather bound ledgers linked to Faulkner's works at Wilson Library

Hidden within UNC’s Southern Historical Collection at the Wilson Library since 1946 are five leather bound ledgers that reveal a startling connection to one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, William Faulkner.

Dating back to 1839, the ledgers contain daily cotton totals, the purchase and sale of slaves and among other personal records that had remained relatively insignificant until two and a half years ago.

Sally Wolff-King, who teaches at Emory University, detailed her discovery at a speech Wednesday at Wilson Library.

She said she stumbled upon the ledgers after interviewing a man who claimed to have known Faulkner.

Edwin Wigan Francisco III revealed to Wolff-King that his father and Faulkner had been close friends and that Faulkner had spent much time at his home.

During one interview, Francisco showed Wolff-King a typescript of ledgers written by his great-great-grandfather Francis Terry Leak.

An initial look over of the typescripts revealed the names Sam, Moses and Isaac alongside references to $400, $800 and $900 transactions for slaves.

Wolff-King immediately recognized these names and figures as being present in Faulkner’s novel “Go Down, Moses.”

“Inside I was screaming to myself, William Faulkner liked to look at this book!” she said.

After learning from Francisco that William Faulkner had spent countless hours poring over the five journals in his family’s home, Wolff-King has gone on to discover many different names, events and lines that appear in both the ledgers and Faulkner’s novels.

“It shows that Faulkner was looking at a real series of texts and describing something real, but it doesn’t diminish his sense of creativity,” she said.

Sam Lemley, a junior English major and avid Faulkner reader, expressed the impact of Wolff-King’s discovery on the way he looks at Faulkner’s work.

“Some of his stories seem so real anyway because he was drawing from his own family and experiences,” Lemley said. “These findings make his writing that much more powerful.

“She discovered a person who had contact and has visual evidence of Faulkner’s action,” Biff Hollingsworth, collecting and outreach archivist in the Southern Historical Collection, said.

“It’s a very direct link to Faulkner and history.”

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