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Rowan Oak renovation insures long future for tourist draw.

Article Excerpt
Fifty years ago, Oxford was a small county seat town isolated in the hill country of North Mississippi and there was little in Oxford to indicate that it was the home of the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), not even a bookstore. There were visitors, but only to football games.

William Faulkner--some local people still called him "Count No Count"--could be seen on the Oxford streets or in a store or restaurant, but he preferred the seclusion of his home, Rowan Oak. His privacy there became so important to him that he built a brick wall on the street side of his properly to keep strangers from staring at the house.

Though Faulkner had won the Noble Prize in 1950, he had been out of print in the United States for a time in the 1940s and was hardly a household word in Mississippi--or any other state.

Today, there's probably no part...

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