The Reivers is a novel written by William Faulkner and published in 1962. Faulkner is one of the most famous writers in American history, having won more than one Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The Reivers won one of these prizes, in 1963. Faulkner wrote novels, plays, poetry, essays, short stories, and screenplays. He is best known for his novels that are set in the South, and after winning the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, his writing garnered much more attention. Also, The Reivers is one of Faulkner’s most popular novels.
In terms of composition, The Reivers is more straightforward than several of Faulkner’s other novels, and it has much less complicated literary techniques. This work is a picaresque novel, which is more lighthearted than the rest of Faulkner’s works and also uncharacteristic especially for the subject matter. A picaresque novel follows a hero, who is well loved but also rough and somewhat uncivilized, and in this novel, his name is Lucius Priest. He goes with his friend named Boon Hogganbeck to Memphis, because Hogganbeck wants to woo a prostitute named Miss Corrie. He steals Lucius’s grandfather’s car, which makes him a reiver (one who steals), and Ned, a colored man, is hiding in the car. They reach Memphis, and when Boon and Lucius stay in the brothels, Ned goes into the black part of town and trades the car for a racehorse.
