Robert W. Hamblin, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, is professor emeritus of English and the founding director of the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University. A native of northeast Mississippi, he completed advanced degrees at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Faulkner's hometown. He has directed Faulkner seminars for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Missouri Humanities Council and has lectured on Faulkner in Europe and Asia, as well as throughout the United States. He has coedited seventeen books on William Faulkner, including a William Faulkner Encyclopedia and A Companion to Faulkner Studies.