William Alexander Percy (1885–1942)

3694. Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son, by William Alexander Percy (read 7 Feb 2003) I have been wanting to read this since Jan 16, 1998, when I read Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, by John Barry, which so prominently discussed it. It was published in 1941, the author, son of LeRoy Percy (U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1910 to 1913), dying in 1942. This is an odd but fetching work. The book is of high interest when show more recounting the author's four years at the University of the South at Sewanee, Tenn., a year abroad, three years at Harvard Law, and in France in World War One. His account of his father's fight against the Ku Klux Klan in Greenville, Miss., is also of dramatic interest, as is the account of the great 1927 flood. This is a good book to read, even though one is appalled at the smart author's prejudice against Negroes--and one wonders what he would say today. This is a book full of interest and well worth reading. show less

Subtitled "Reflections of a Planter's Son" with an introduction in 1973 by Walker Percy who was raised by his uncle after the death of his parents. Born and reared within the shelter of the old traditions, aristocratic is the best sense, Percy was brought face to face with the convulutions of a changing world.