Names and faces

LITTLE ROCK — A rare collection of signed William Faulkner books and personal items, including one of his most acclaimed novels, Light in August, sold at auction Tuesday for $833,246. The collection of 90 items was nearly a complete representation of Faulkner’s work, said the auction house, Christie’s. The auction probably was the last chance to acquire such a large collection of the author’s work, Louis Daniel Brodsky, a poet and Faulkner scholar, said in an interview before the auction. The highest price went for Absalom, Absalom!, a story about Southern poverty told entirely in flashbacks, which sold for $86,500. Inscribed in 1936 to novelist and journalist Malcolm Cowley, the first edition novel exceeded the $40,000 to $60,000 pre-sale estimate.Inscribed copies of Absalom, Absalom! are rare, with only two others recorded at auction in the past 30 years, according to Christie’s. The first edition of Light in August, which centers on three characters and explores the devastating effects of racial bias and religious fanaticism in the South, sold for $47,500. The book also is inscribed by the Nobel Prize-winning author to Cowley, who was working on a profile of Faulkner for Life magazine. Christie’s did not identify either buyer, or the American seller.

Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t going to let a little power failure stop the taping of his show. Show publicist Chelsea Hettrick said the lights went out Monday night about an hour before ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live was set to begin taping at its Hollywood studio. She said the failure shut down the control room, broadcast transmission center and tape operations area. Hettrick said that as guests and a studio audience waited, Kimmel grabbed his laptop and recorded the entire show with his computer’s webcam.