The novels of Walker Percy--The Moviegoer, Lancelot, The Second Coming, and The Thanatos Syndrome to name a few--have left a permanent mark on twentieth-century Southern fiction; yet the history of the Percy family in America matches anything, perhaps, that he could have created. Two centuries of wealth, literary accomplishment, political leadership, depression, and sometimes suicide established a fascinating legacy that lies behind Walker Percy's acclaimed prose and profound insight into the human condition. In The House of Percy, Bertram Wyatt-Brown masterfully interprets the life of...
The novels of Walker Percy--The Moviegoer, Lancelot, The Second Coming, and The Thanatos Syndrome to name a few--have left a permanent mark on twentie...
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award, hailed in The Washington Post as "a work of enormous imagination and enterprise" and in The New York Times as "an important, original book," Southern Honor revolutionized our understanding of the antebellum South, revealing how Southern men adopted an ancient honor code that shaped their society from top to bottom. Using legal documents, letters, diaries, and newspaper columns, Wyatt-Brown offers fascinating examples to illuminate the dynamics of Southern life throughout the antebellum period. He...
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award, hailed in The Washington Post as "a work of enormous imagination and enterpris...
Lewis Tappan (1788--1873), founder of the Journal of Commerce and the nation's first credit rating firm, is probably best known for his business accomplishments. His greatest achievement, however, was not finance but freedom. In the 1830s, he and his wealthy brother Arthur underwrote and inspired the Manhattan headquarters of the American Anti-Slavery Society and founded many other organizations to promote freedom, faith, and racial tolerance. As prominent historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown demonstrates in this fascinating portrait, Tappan contributed much more to the cause of liberty and...
Lewis Tappan (1788--1873), founder of the Journal of Commerce and the nation's first credit rating firm, is probably best known for his business ac...
From Edgar Allan Poe's dark fore-bodings to Kate Chopin's lifelong struggle with sorrow and loss, depression has shadowed southern letters. This beautifully realized study explores the defining role of melancholy in southern literature from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth, when it evolved into modernist alienation. While creativity and depression have been linked throughout Western history, Bertram Wyatt-Brown argues that nineteenth-century southern culture was hospitable to a distinctive melancholy that impelled literary production. Deeply marked by high death rates,...
From Edgar Allan Poe's dark fore-bodings to Kate Chopin's lifelong struggle with sorrow and loss, depression has shadowed southern letters. This beaut...
Extending his investigation into the ethical life of the white American South beyond what he wrote in Southern Honor (1982), Bertram Wyatt-Brown explores three major themes in southern history: the political aspects of the South's code of honor, the increasing prominence of Protestant faith in white southerners' lives, and the devastating impact of war, defeat, and an angry loss of confidence during the post-Civil War era.
This eloquent and richly textured study first demonstrates the psychological complexity of race relations, drawing new and provocative comparisons between...
Extending his investigation into the ethical life of the white American South beyond what he wrote in Southern Honor (1982), Bertram Wyatt-Brow...
The twenty essays collected here explore the Virginia story throughout the Civil War era. Some contributors examine Robert E. Lee and the issues confronting his men, such as soldier morale and religious conversion. Others emphasize the wartime home front--in some cases reexamining its connection with the battlefront--or explore questions of gender, race, or religion. Several essays extend the story into the postwar years and consider various Virginia individuals or groups in the context of the conflict's aftermath. Building on current knowledge, but often contesting conventional thinking,...
The twenty essays collected here explore the Virginia story throughout the Civil War era. Some contributors examine Robert E. Lee and the issues co...
The Percys, one the most distinguished families in the South, are notable not only for their prominence in the political and economic development of the Mississippi Delta but also for their literary creativity. In The Literary Percys, noted historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown examines the role of gender and family history in the writings of this exceptional lineage.
Few families in American can claim so many gifted writers as the Percys. The best-known among them are novelist Walker Percy, who died in 1990, and his cousin and guardian, William Alexander Percy, poet and author of the...
The Percys, one the most distinguished families in the South, are notable not only for their prominence in the political and economic development o...
Ely Green was born in Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1893. His father was a member of the white gentry, the son of a former Confederate officer. His mother was a housemaid, the daughter of a former slave. In this small Episcopal community--home to the University of the South--Ely lived his early childhood oblivious to the implications of his illegitimacy and his parentage. He was nearly nine years old before he realized that being different from his white playmates was of any real significance.
An incident at a local drugstore marked the beginning of what would be a painful rite of passage from...
Ely Green was born in Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1893. His father was a member of the white gentry, the son of a former Confederate officer. His mother...
The twenty essays collected here explore the Virginia story throughout the Civil War era. Some contributors examine Robert E. Lee and the issues confronting his men, such as soldier morale and religious conversion. Others emphasize the wartime home front--in some cases reexamining its connection with the battlefront--or explore questions of gender, race, or religion. Several essays extend the story into the postwar years and consider various Virginia individuals or groups in the context of the conflict's aftermath. Building on current knowledge, but often contesting conventional thinking,...
The twenty essays collected here explore the Virginia story throughout the Civil War era. Some contributors examine Robert E. Lee and the issues co...
