Born in 1897, William Faulkner spent his very early years in the country villages of New Albany and Ripley, Mississippi. When he was five years old, his family moved to Oxford and settled there. From the vantage point of the partly restored old mansion his father and mother bought on the town's square, the young Faulkner was able to watch and listen to the parade of farmers that came into this town of little over a thousand citizens. Faulkner later bought his own estate just north of Oxford, where he continued to observe and reflect on the residents of the area. He also made use of his own family history, including ancestors who had led sometimes glorious, sometimes infamous lives in North Carolina and Mississippi. Drawing on these influences, he created many stories and novels set in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha. Among them is the saga of the Snopes family, beginning with Abner Snopes in the short story, "Barn Burning."
Reconstruction and beyond. The Civil War virtually destroyed the economy of the South. The resources of even the smallest landowner had, in many cases, been seized by the Confederate government in support of the war effort, and the invading Union army had destroyed land and other property as a means of winning the war.
