"It's fascinating for me to read, for the first time in over forty years, the stumbling starts toward the creation of "Lie Down in Darkness." These passages show how, in my early twenties, I may have been in possession of a luminous vision for a novel but how it was a luminosity clouded by much indecision and awkwardness. . . . "Inheritance of Night," then, is made up of fragments of a beginning, bits of fruitful inspiration mingled with conceits that were stillborn."--William Styron, from the Preface

Preface / William Styron vii
Introduction / James L. W. West III xi
Prospectus (Winter 1947-48) 1
Typescript I: First Beginning (Winter 1947-48) 9
Typescript II: Second Beginning (Fall 1948) 67
Typescript III: Continuation of Second Beginning (Spring 1949) 115
Description of the Documents 138