[There are a number of] striking similarities between Stribling's [Vaiden Trilogy] and Absalom, Absalom!, which incidentally was published in 1936, two years after Unfinished Cathedral, the final novel in the trilogy. This is not so much to suggest that Faulkner deliberately patterned any of his themes, characters, or plots after Stribling's, though, of course, he may have subconsciously or even unconsciously remembered them from his reading; but to demonstrate that Faulkner treated a similar subject matter and character types from an era in southern social history that Stribling treated first, and in so doing Stribling may have provided an impetus for the author of Absalom, Absalom!

One of the chief parallels between the Stribling trilogy and Absalom, Absalom! is in the portrayal of the major characters, Miltiades Vaiden and Thomas Sutpen, both of whom, employing questionable means, rise to eminence but eventually fall because they live their lives according...