The Hamlet, the first vel of Faulkner's Spes trilogy, is both an ironic take on classical tragedy and a mordant commentary on the grand pretensions of the antebellum South and the depths of its decay in the aftermath of war and Reconstruction. It tells of the advent and the rise of the Spes family in Frenchman's Bend, a small town built on the ruins of a once-stately plantation. Flem Spes wily, energetic, a man of shady origins quickly comes to dominate the town and its people with his cunning and guile.
