The Percys are an American family rooted in the American South. Established in Mississippi in the 18th century, the family is best known for their contributions to the Southern American literary arts, their ownership of slave plantations and their struggle with melancholy and suicide across generations.[1][2][3]
| Percy family | |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Current region | American South |
| Place of origin | England |
The first member of the family to arrive in the United States was Charles Percy, who migrated from England to Mississippi in 1776 and became the owner of a slave plantation.[4][5] There he had a number of children, including Thomas George Percy.[3] Among Charles' grandchildren was gothic novelist Catherine Anne Warfield.[6] His grandson William Alexander Percy became a Confederate colonel during the Civil War and was later elected as a Democratic representative at the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he became speaker.[7] LeRoy Percy, a family member known for his opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, became a United States senator in 1910.[5]
LeRoy's son, novelist and secret homosexual William Alexander Percy, wrote the Southern classic Lanterns on the Levee (1941).[4] William later adopted his relative Walker Percy, who became one of the best-known novelists of the family.[1][6][5] Several members of the family have expressed signs of melancholy and depression. Beginning with Charles' self-inflicted death in 1794, at least one member of each generation died by suicide until 1929.[3]
Other members of the family include University of Massachusetts history professor William Armstrong Percy III,[8] writer Eleanor Percy Lee and her novelist daughter Kate Lee Ferguson,[9] and novelist Sarah Dorsey, daughter of Thomas.[3]
Further reading
editReferences
edit- 1 2 Hobson, Linda Whitney (1995). "Review of The House of Percy: Honor, Melancholy, and Imagination". South Atlantic Review. 60 (4): 155–157. doi:10.2307/3201249. ISSN 0277-335X. JSTOR 3201249.
- 1 2 "The House of Percy Honor, Melancholy, and Imagination in a Southern Family , and: The Literary Percys Family History, Gender, and the Southern Imagination (review)". Southern Cultures. 3 (4): 79–84. 1997. doi:10.1353/scu.1997.0071. ISSN 1534-1488.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Mayfield, John (1997). Wyatt-Brown, Bertram (ed.). "Hope among the Ruins: The Percy Family and the Southern Imagination". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 75 (4): 429–440. ISSN 0015-4113. JSTOR 30149061.
- 1 2 3 King, Richard H.; Baker, Lewis. "The Percys of Mississippi: Politics and Literature in the New South". The Journal of American History. 71 (1): 138. doi:10.2307/1899876. JSTOR 1899876.
- 1 2 3 4 THE HOUSE OF PERCY | Kirkus Reviews.
- 1 2 Johnson, Ben (1995). "Review of The House of Percy: Honor, Melancholy, and Imagination in a Southern Family; The Literary Percys: Family History, Gender, and the Southern Imagination, Bertram Wyatt-Brown". The Arkansas Historical Quarterly. 54 (2): 216–218. ISSN 0004-1823. JSTOR 40018515.
- ↑ O'Gorman, Farrell; Gorman, Farrell O' (2004). Peculiar crossroads: Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and Catholic vision in postwar southern fiction. Southern literary studies. Baton Rouge, La: Louisiana State University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-8071-2988-3.
- ↑ Percy, William Armstrong; Flax-Clarke, Aidan; Gannett, Lewis (2009-07-28). "Walker, Uncle Will, and I: A Homophobe and Two Queens". Southern Communication Journal. 74 (3): 252–268. doi:10.1080/10417940903060989. ISSN 1041-794X.
- 1 2 Shields, Johanna Nicol (1996). "Review of The Literary Percys: Family History, Gender, and the Southern Imagination". The Journal of Southern History. 62 (3): 632–634. doi:10.2307/2211566. ISSN 0022-4642. JSTOR 2211566.
- 1 2 "The House of Percy: Honor, Melancholy, and Imagination in a Southern Family, and The Literary Percys: Family History, Gender, and the Southern Imagination by Bertram Wyatt-Brown (Review)". Southern Cultures. 1997-12-01. Retrieved 2026-01-18.
- ↑ Wittenberg, Judith Bryant (1984). "Review of The Percys of Mississippi: Politics and Literature in the New South; Laughing Stock: The Posthumous Autobiography of T. S. Stribling; Grace King: A Southern Destiny; Recasting: "Gone with the Wind" in American Culture". Modern Fiction Studies. 30 (4): 796–799. ISSN 0026-7724. JSTOR 26282842.