Sewanee

by William Alexander Percy (Editor)

Book by

41 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

William Alexander Percy was a Mississippi Delta planter, lawyer, poet, man of letters, and gentleman from Greenville, Mississippi. He is best known for his autobiography, Lanterns on the Levee, a book revealing not only the man but also the region, the times in which he lived, and the culture that shaped him.

Though he considered himself primarily a poet, his autobiography is today considered his major work. Spanning the years of his life — from his birth on May 14, 1885, to the book's publication in 1941 — Lanterns on the Levee looks upon the drastic social changes of that period with a sense of foreboding, upholding agrarian sensibility and the values of kindness, moral integrity, and friendship instead of what Percy perceived as the prevailing trends of declining moral values and technological progress.
He served as guardian to his cousin Walker Percy after the death of Walker's parents. He died on January 21, 1942.

He was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with gold star for his service in World War I; he also 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.