Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son

by William Alexander Percy

Overview

Born and raised in Greenville, Mississippi, within the shelter of old traditions, aristocratic in the best sense, William Alexander Percy in his lifetime (1885—1942) was brought face to face with the convulsions of a changing world. Lanterns on the Levee is his memorial to the South of his youth and young manhood. In describing life in the Mississippi Delta, Percy bridges the interval between the semifeudal South of the 1800s and the anxious South of the early 1940s. The rare qualities of this classic memoir lie not in what Will Percy did in his life — although his life was exciting and varied — but rather in the intimate, honest, and soul-probing record of how he brought himself to contemplate unflinchingly a new and unstable era. The 1973 introduction by Walker Percy — Will's nephew and adopted son — recalls the strong character and easy grace of "the most extraordinary man I have ever known."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807100721
Publisher:	Louisiana State University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2006
Series:	Library of Southern Civilization
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	376
Sales rank:	244,419
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

William Alexander Percy died the year after his autobiography was published. During World War I he fought in France with the American 37th Division, rose to the rank of captain, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre with gold star. With his father, U.S. Senator LeRoy Percy, he was one of the leaders in the successful 1922 fight against the Ku Klux Klan in Greenville, and he headed the local Red Cross unit during the disastrous Mississippi River flooding of 1927. He was the author of four books of poetry and practiced law in Greenville until his death.

Table of Contents

I	The Delta	3
II	Delta Folks	16
III	Mur and Nain	25
IV	Mere and Pere	35
V	Playmates	46
VI	A Side-Show Gotterdammerung	56
VII	A Small Boy's Heroes	65
VIII	Learning from Teachers	76
IX	Sewanee	92
X	A Year Abroad	105
XI	At the Harvard Law School	113
XII	The Return of the Native	125
XIII	The Bottom Rail on Top	140
XIV	1914-1916	156
XV	The Peewee Squad	169
XVI	Getting to the Front	184
XVII	At the Front	201
XVIII	The Ku Klux Klan Comes and Goes	225
XIX	Hell and High Water	242
XX	The Flood of 1927	249
XXI	Planters, Share-Croppers, and Such	270
XXII	Fode	285
XXIII	A Note on Racial Relations	298
XXIV	For the Younger Generation	310
XXV	A Bit of Diary	322
XXVI	Jackdaw in the Garden	332
XXVII	Home	344