Lanterns On The Levee
Recollections of a Planter's Son
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
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."
Customer Reviews
Lovely Old Fashioned Writing
Great, modestly written memoir of a time that seems long past, although written less than 75 years ago. Percy describes a vanished class (white planter class), and enormously changed place (Mississippi Delta--late 19th century through the early 1940s just before his death). Though his views are no longer pc, I think he tries to be fair about the racial issues that vexed his part of the country at that time. His family was enormously opposed to the Klu Klux Klan and he did appear to be personally sensitive to individuals. My favorite chapters dealt with his notable, quirky and interesting family, his rural childhood, his experiences in World War I and the great flood of 1927.