Major Works
- Every Day by the Sun: A Memoir of the Faulkners of Mississippi (Memoir, 2011)
- Ghosts of Rowan Oak: William Faulkner’s Ghost Stories for Children — Dean Faulkner Wells, William Faulkner
- The Best Christmas of All (1987)
- The Faulkner Newsletter: Collected Issues — William Boozer (Editor), et al
- The Best of Bad Faulkner: choice entries from the Faux Faulkner contest — Dean Faulkner Wells (Editor)
- The Great American Writers’ Cookbook–editor
- Belle-Duck at The Peabody (children’s book–ages 7-9)
- Mississippi Heroes Ed. by Dean Faulkner Wells and Hunter Cole (2002)
Dean Faulkner Wells: A Biography
Larry and Dean Faulkner Wells in 1980. Founders of Yoknapatawpha Press in 1975.
Dean Faulkner Wells, born on March 22, 1936, just a few short months after her father was killed in a plane crash. Her parents were Dean Swift Faulkner (William Faulkner‘s youngest brother) and Louise Hale. After her father’s death, William Faulkner became her legal guardian.
Dean Faulkner Wells
Wells attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford and the University of Geneva. She had three children from her first marriage. She then married Larry Wells and together
they founded the Yoknapatawpha Press in 1979. Faulkner Wells was a co-founder, with her husband Larry Wells, of the Faux Faulkner parody contest and worked to renovate Rowan Oak, the home of William Faulkner.
In addition to her novels, Wells’s work was published in many journals and magazines including Parade Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, and the Paris Review.
Dean Faulkner Wells died in Oxford on July 27, 2011, from complications of a stroke.
Reviews
A Review of A Christmas Remembered
by Emily Cranford (SHS)
A Christmas Remembered by Dean Faulkner Wells describes a Christmas that many Southerners can
Dean Faulkner Wells with her uncle William Faulkner on her wedding day.
relate to. She tells of her visit as a little girl to her uncle’s house. Her uncle is the famous writer William Faulkner, the man she called Pappy. She and her mother and her grandmother Nanie always went to Rowan Oak on Christmas and Wells describes one Christmas day in particular that was hot. She wore a green velvet dress as she rode in the rumble seat Wells describes the car ride to her uncle’s house as one in which she stared at her white stockings and shiny shoes because she could not see over the rumble seat. The way Wells describes her visit to her uncle’s house makes you feel as though you are there too. Wells knew that they were at her uncle’s the moment they hit a pothole in the driveway. She describes the way the air smelled and how the tall trees looked to her as a child. Through sight and smell Wells shows what Mississippi was really like, but her story is especially of interest because it provides insight into the life and personality of William Faulkner.
I thought A Christmas Remembered was a very touching story. The story describes Christmas past in Mississippi in the lives of one of its most famous families, the Faulkners. I like A Christmas Remembered, and I think anyone who likes to remember the past with family and friends would like it, too.
Related Websites
- Obutuary for Dean Faulkner Wells gives more details about her life.
- Last Living Faulkner talks about Pappy, CNN
- Fascinating interview called “Homage to Dean Faulkner Wells.” It is a 2011 interview by French journalist Francois Busnel filmed on the front steps of Rowan Oak in Oxford, Mississippi. It was recorded two weeks before she died. This interview is Dean’s final one.
- Wikepedia article about Wells.