Stuart Wright Collection: Walker Percy Papers

1954-1997 (Bulk: 1975-1987); 1975-1987
Manuscript Collection #1169-082
Creator(s)
Percy, Walker, 1916-1990
Physical description
0.25 Cubic Feet, 1 archival box, 49 items, 220 p.
Preferred Citation
Stuart Wright Collection: Walker Percy Papers (#1169-082), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
Repository
ECU Manuscript Collection
Access
No restrictions

Papers of Walker Percy (1954-1997 [1975-1987]) documenting the life and literary career of the noted Birmingham, Alabama-born American novelist of the New South, consisting of three copies of a proof entitled Walker Percy: A Bibliography: 1930-1984, compiled by Stuart Wright (1985); also loose manuscript items transferred from works by Walker Percy in the Stuart Wright Book Collection, including from: Lancelot: A Novel (1977-1982), Lost in the Cosmos (1978-1997), The Message in the Bottle (1975-1983), The Movie-Goer: A Novel (1961, 1982), The Thanatos Syndrome (1987-1997), The Correspondence of Shelby Foote Walker Percy (1979-1987), The Message of Auschwitz (1987), and Walker Percy: A Bibliography, by Stuart Wright (1986) ; also including a pamphlet by Walker Percy, entitled Symbol and Need (1954).


Biographical/historical information

Walker Percy was born, on 28 May 1916, in Birmingham, Alabama. His father's family had illustrious forebears, including a Civil War hero and a U.S. Senator. His grandfather had committed suicide in 1917. In 1929, when Percy was 13, his father committed suicide and two years later his mother died in a car crash that may also have been a suicide. These deaths haunted Percy throughout his life.

After the death of his parents, Percy lived with his cousin in Greenville, Mississippi. Percy earned his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1937 and then went on to medical school at Columbia University. He earned his M.D., there, in 1941, and while completing his residency at Bellevue Hospital he contracted tuberculous while performing an autopsy.

Percy then spent several years recovering in a sanatorium at Saranac Lake, New York. While there he became interested in existentialist writings and philosophy. Though he was raised as an atheist, Percy began to study Catholicism with his new wife, Mary Bernice Townsend (m. 1946); both converted to Catholicism in 1947.

In 1956, Percy began writing articles for the Catholic magazine Commonweal. Percy received published his first book, The Moviegoer (1961). The book won the prestigious National Book Award for 1962. Percy later earned many awards and prizes including a grant from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, a National Catholic Book award and a National Book Critics Circle citation in 1980. Percy wrote for most of his professional life for a living. Walker Percy's literary career is cataloged in Walker Percy: A Bibliography: 1930-1984, by Stuart Wright (1985).

On 10 May 1990, Percy passed away from prostate cancer, in Covington, LA.

Sources:

"Walker Percy". [Biographical Sketch] Wikipedia. Accessed 30 November 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Percy.

"Walker Percy" [Biographical Sketch] Gale Literature Resource Center. Accessed 30 November 2016. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&u=ncliveecu&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CK1632000203&asid=14af6d025b7f06fe57093cf35df24d0f

"Walker Percy Papers, circa 1910-1996 (#4292)". 27.0 lin. ft. Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson, Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC. http://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/04294/

"Walker Percy Papers, 1945-2000 (bulk 1970-1990)". 3.75 lin. ft. Monroe Library, Special Collections, Loyola University, New Orleans, LA. https://loyno.louislibraries.org/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/0/57/5/3?searchdata1=857228%7BCKEY%7D&searchfield1=GENERAL%5ESUBJECT%5EGENERAL%5E%5E&user_id=WEBSERVER

"Patrick Samway, S.J. Papers". 49 lin. ft. Monroe Library, Special Collections, Loyola University, New Orleans, LA. https://loyno.louislibraries.org/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/0/57/5/3?searchdata1=857097%7BCKEY%7D&searchfield1=GENERAL%5ESUBJECT%5EGENERAL%5E%5E&user_id=WEBSERVER

Author: Jonathan Dembo, with the assistance of John Leche, 11/30/2016, 3/17/2017.

Stuart Wright collected and compiled the Percy Walker Papers. He was born, Stuart Thurman Wright, on 30 March 1948, in Roxboro, North Carolina. He was the son of Frances Critcher Wright (1919-2010) and Wallace Lyndon Wright (1921-1965). An avid reader as a boy, Wright developed a strong interest in the American Civil War and with his father toured many of the war's battlefields searching for artifacts and studying the history of the era. At the age of 12, he won a statewide "Johnny Reb" essay contest and by the age of 15 had visited every major battlefield of the Civil War. Wright attended Roxboro High School, from which he graduated in 1966. It was during these years that he developed an interest in collecting historical books and manuscripts and began relationships with a number of local collectors and dealers.

In the fall of 1966, Wright enrolled at Wake Forest University as a pre-med, history, German and music student. Wright earned a B.A. in German and music in 1970. As a graduate student at Wake Forest University, Wright focused his studies on Southern history and literature, his ambition being to build an authoritative Southern Studies collection for the university. He received a master's degree in Southern Studies in 1973 and a second master's degree in U.S. History in 1980. Additionally Wright holds a professional degree from England in a medically related field. It was while studying there that he became interested in Thomas Wolfe, the noted North Carolina native and novelist.

Following his graduation from Wake Forest, Wright began to develop his collections more systematically, acquiring many first editions of Southern writers. In 1976 he began teaching at Reynolda House, a Wake Forest University affiliate dedicated to the arts and arts education. Wright taught classes in American music as well as human anatomy for art students. In 1978 Wright became Lecturer in Education at Wake Forest University. During his 10 years teaching at Wake Forest University, Wright authored numerous works of Civil War and North Carolina history, and dozens of articles, bibliographies, essays and reviews on Southern literature and the writers whose papers he collected. In addition, he developed a strong interest in the writings of the English poet Donald Davie and the Minnesota-born poet Richard Eberhart, whose works he also collected.

At the same time, Wright also began a career as a publisher by starting Palaemon Press in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. By 1984, Palaemon Press had produced 316 titles, consisting mainly of broadsides and limited editions, of the poetry and essays of such Southern writers as A. R. Ammons, Fred Chappell, James Dickey, William Goyen, George Garrett, and Eudora Welty. He also built comprehensive collections and compiled book-length descriptive bibliographies of A.R. Ammons, Andrew Lytle, Reynolds Price, James Dickey, William Goyen, Walker Percy, Randall Jarrell, Peter Taylor, George Garrett, Richard Eberhart, and Donald Davie. As well as serving as editor of the contemporary literature section of the Bulletin of Bibliography throughout the 1980s, Wright also contributed pioneering checklists of the writings of Southern poets Henry Taylor, Charles Wright, and Robert Morgan. For Meckler Publishing he served as series editor for a number of book-length bibliographies and checklists. In recognition of these accomplishments, when he was just 32, Wright was elected to membership in New York's prestigious Grolier Club.

All of these works are represented in the Stuart Wright Collection. In his dealings with these various authors Wright made consistent efforts to acquire personal papers, letters and documents, photographs, manuscripts, drafts, proofs, and published materials to supplement his continuing activities as a purchaser of their works. In this way, Wright acquired perhaps a majority of his overall collection. Over the years a number of biographers used Wright's collection to aid their research. For example, James A. Grimshaw, Jr. used the collection extensively for his Robert Penn Warren: A Descriptive Bibliography, 1922-1979 published by the University Press of Virginia, in 1981 and Craig S. Abbott did so as well for John Crowe Ransom: A Descriptive Bibliography, published by Whitston Publishing Company, Inc. in 1999. Joseph Blotner also used the Wright collection in researching Robert Penn Warren: A Biography, published by Random House in 1997.

Nevertheless, from the mid- to late 1980s, Wright began to look for a permanent home for his collection, which he felt had grown too large and yet had been too little used. Unable to find a repository willing to accept the entire collection under suitable conditions, he sold a number of individual author collections to Vanderbilt University, Duke University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Emory University. It was not until 2010 that he reached agreement to house the remaining, and largest part of his collection at East Carolina University. The Stuart Wright Collection in the East Carolina Manuscript Collection of J.Y. Joyner Library includes 106 sub-collections of the papers of Southern American writers, illustrators, composers, and publishers. The related Stuart Wright Book Collection holds several thousand volumes by or about many of the same writers. Many of these volumes contain annotations, inscriptions, and insertions that reveal much about the authors in the collection and their relationships with one another. In 1998 Wright moved to England, and since 2001 he has resided in the medieval market town of Ludlow, in Shropshire.

Author: Jonathan Dembo, 11/2/2016


Scope and arrangement

Stuart Wright Collection: Walker Percy Papers (#1169-082) are arranged in original order in 2 series.

Series 1: Cary Addition #1 to the Stuart Wright Collection, consists of papers (1954-1997) documenting the life and literary career of Walker Percy (1916-1990), the noted American novelist, consisting of three copies of a proof of Walker Percy: A Bibliography: 1930-1984, (1985) compiled by Stuart Wright; also loose manuscript items from works by Walker Percy transferred from the Stuart Wright Book Collection, including: Lancelot: A Novel,Lost in the Cosmos,The Message in the Bottle,The Movie-Goer: A Novel and The Thanatos Syndrome; also including a pamphlet by Walker Percy, entitledSymbol and Need. Source: Cary Addition Box #115.000, 145.000, 159.026, 159.027, 159.031, 159.032, 159.034, 159.035, 159.046. Series 1 is held in 1.a-1.k.

Series 2: Ludlow Addition #2 to the Stuart Wright Collection, consists of papers (1954-1997) documenting the life and literary career of Walker Percy (1916-1990), the noted American novelist, consisting of loose manuscript items from works by Walker Percy transferred from the Stuart Wright Book Collection, including: The Correspondence of Shelby Foote & Walker Percy,The Message of Auschwitz,Walker Percy: A Bibliography, by Stuart Wright. Source: Cary Addition Boxes #172.016, 180.017, 181.028. Series 2 is held in Box 1.l-1.n.


Administrative information
Custodial History

27 October 2011, (Cary Addition #1), 0.125 cubic feet; 0.50 archival box; 38 items; 198 p. Papers (1954-1997) documenting the life and literary career of Walker Percy (1916-1990), the noted American novelist, consisting of three copies of a proof of Walker Percy: A Bibliography: 1930-1984, compiled by Stuart Wright; also loose manuscript items from works by Walker Percy transferred from the Stuart Wright Book Collection, including: Lancelot: A Novel,Lost in the Cosmos,The Message in the Bottle,The Movie-Goer: A Novel and The Thanatos Syndrome; also including a pamphlet by Walker Percy, entitledSymbol and Need. Source: Cary Addition Box #115.000, 145.000, 159.026, 159.027, 159.031, 159.032, 159.034, 159.035, 159.046. Vendor: Stuart Wright

20 July 2012, (Ludlow Addition #2), 0.125 cubic feet; 0.50 archival box; 11 items; 22 p. Papers (1954-1997) documenting the life and literary career of Walker Percy (1916-1990), the noted American novelist, consisting of loose manuscript items from works by Walker Percy transferred from the Stuart Wright Book Collection, including: The Correspondence of Shelby Foote & Walker Percy,The Message of Auschwitz,Walker Percy: A Bibliography, by Stuart Wright. Source: Cary Addition Boxes #172.016, 180.017, 181.028. Vendor: Stuart Wright

Source of acquisition

Purchased from Stuart Wright, 10/27/2011, 7/20/2012

Processing information

Processing, Preliminary inventory & Container List, by Jonathan Dembo, with the assistance of Nathaniel King, 2/18/2016, 5/13/2016, 8/30/2016; Final inventory by Jonathan Dembo, 8/30/2016; Finding aid by Jonathan Dembo, 9/27/2016, 11/30/2016; Biographical Sketch, by Jonathan Dembo with the assistance of John Leche, 11/28/2016, rev. 2/21/2017; Encoding revised by Jonathan Dembo, 2/21/2017, 3/17/2017.

Copyright notice

Literary rights to specific documents are retained by the authors or their descendants in accordance with U.S. copyright law.


Language of material

English

Related material

Walker Percy Papers (#4294) circa 1910-1996 27.0 lin. ft., Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson, Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC USA

Walker Percy Papers, 1945-2000 (bulk 1970-1990) 3.75 lin. ft., Monroe Library, Special Collections, Loyola University, New Orleans, LA USA

Patrick Samway, S.J. Papers, 49 lin. ft., Monroe Library, Special Collections, Loyola University, New Orleans, LA USA


Key terms
Personal Names
Percy, Walker, 1916-1990
Topical
Novelists, American--20th century

Container list
Box 1 Folder a Walker Percy : A Bibliography : 1930 - 1984 : Based on the Collection of the Compiler, including Books, Pamphlets, Magazines, Journals, Newspapers, Etc. [Bibliography] by Stuart Wright (Winston-Salem, NC : Palaemon Press Ltd., © 1985) Uncorrected Proofs. Paper back. Spiral bound. 1 item. 48 p. ; Note : Copy 1 of 3 ; Source : Cary Addition Box #145.000
Box 1 Folder b Walker Percy : A Bibliography : 1930 - 1984 : Based on the Collection of the Compiler, including Books, Pamphlets, Magazines, Journals, Newspapers, Etc. [Bibliography] by Stuart Wright (Winston-Salem, NC : Palaemon Press Ltd., © 1985) Uncorrected Proofs. Paper back. Spiral bound. 1 item. 48 p. ; Note : Copy 2 of 3 ; Source : Cary Addition Box #145.000
Box 1 Folder c Walker Percy : A Bibliography : 1930 - 1984 : Based on the Collection of the Compiler, including Books, Pamphlets, Magazines, Journals, Newspapers, Etc. [Bibliography] by Stuart Wright (Winston-Salem, NC : Palaemon Press Ltd., © 1985) Uncorrected Proofs. Paper back. Spiral bound. 1 item. 48 p. ; Note : Copy 3 of 3 ; Source : Cary Addition Box #145.000
Box 1 Folder d Lancelot : A Novel, by Walker Percy (© 1977) Note : 1) Publicity portrait of Percy for "Lancelot", (c) Jill Krementz, with caption (ca. 1977) Photographic print with caption. Black & white. 5.25" x 7.75" 1 item. 1 p. ; 2-3) Palaemon Press Ltd., Cancelled Checks for reprint rights to "Bourbon" to Walker Percy #631 ($100) & #321 ($4) (12 March 1979 ; 11 Nov. 1981) Printed forms. 2 items. 2 p. ; 4) Invitation to Stuart Wright to attend Ingersoll Prize Awards Banquet (4 Nov. 1988) Printed form & Envelope. 1 item. 2 p. ; 5-8) Walker Percy, Covington, LA. Envelopes addressed to Stuart Wright (7 June 1977 ; 18 Feb., 27 July 1979 ; 18 Jan. 1982) Empty envelopes. 4 items. 4 p. ; Source : Cary Addition Box #159.026
Box 1 Folder e Lost in the Cosmos, by Walker Percy (© 1983) Note : 1) Invitation to Stuart Wright to attend Ingersoll Prize Awards Banquet (2 Nov. 1997) Printed form & Envelope. 1 item. 3 p. ; 2) Walker Percy, Covington, LA. Mailgram to Stuart Wright thanking him for Christmas gift of a Virginia ham ; with handwritten note added (1 Jan. 1978) Annotated typescript & Envelope. 1 item. 2 p. ; Source : Cary Addition Box #159.032
Box 1 Folder f Message in the Bottle, The, by Walker Percy (© 1975) Note : 1) Walker Percy. Note to Stuart Wright "Thanks, but no thanks" [3 May 1983] ANS & Envelope. 1 item. 2 p. ; 2) Walker Percy, Covington, LA. Postcard to Stuart Wright thanking him for information about LPP (ca. 1975) ALS. 1 item. 1 p. ; 3-8) Palaemon Press Ltd., Cancelled Checks for reprint rights to "Bourbon" to Walker Percy #954 ($4), #1046 ($250), #701 ($3), #130 ($5), #173 ($5) & #533 ($5) (19 Nov. 1980 ; 9 March, 24 May 1979 ; 28 May, 8 July 1981 ; 28 May 1982) Printed forms. 6 items. 6 p. ; 9-11) Walker Percy, Covington, LA. Envelopes addressed to Stuart Wright (19 Jan., 12 Feb., 25 Sept. 1980) Empty envelopes. 3 items. 3 p. ; Source : Cary Addition Box #159.027
Box 1 Folder g More Conversations With Walker Percy, edited by Lewis A. Lawson (© 1993) Note : 1-4) Lewis A. Lawson, Department of English, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. Letters to Stuart Wright about Walker Percy : A Bibliography : 1930-1984, by Stuart Wright (1994 - 1995) TLS & Envelopes. 4 item. 7 p. ; Source : Cary Addition Box #159.034
Box 1 Folder h Movie-Goer : A Novel, The, by Walker Percy (© 1961) Note : 1) Walker Percy, New Orleans, LA. Postcard to Stuart Wright : "The word on Eudora [Welty] is go. Keep this confidential. I don't want her to know that I had anything to do with it. But I thought you'd be interested. Walker [Percy] (26 May 1982) ALS. 1 item. 1 p. ; 2) Stuart Wright Post-it note : "At my instigation, WP went to his brother Leroy, and others, to arrange a lifetime grant of $25 K P/A to Eudora from the Lyndhurst Foundation. . . ." (ca. 1982) ANS. 1 item. 1 p. ; Source : Cary Addition Box x #159.046
Box 1 Folder i Second Coming, The, by Walker Percy (© 1975) Note : 1-2) Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Review copy slip for The Second Coming (7 July 1980) Printed form. 2 items. 2 p. ; Source : Cary Addition Box #159.031
Box 1 Folder j Thanatos Syndrome, The, by Walker Percy (© 1987) Note : 1) Kumquat Bookstore, Covington, LA. Invitation to Autograph Party for Jay Tolson, celebrating his publication of Pilgrim in the Ruins : A Life of Walker Percy (19 Sept. 1992) Printed. 1 item. 1 p. ; 2) Ralph C. Wood, Department of Religion, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC. Letter to Stuart Wright on death of Stuart's former wife (24 May 1994) ALS. 1 item. 1 p. ; 3) Ralph C. Wood, Department of Religion, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC. Letter to Stuart Wright describing his efforts to teach Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins to his college students (24 April 1996) Annotated typescript with Holograph Post-it note attached. 1 item. 3 p. ; 4) Ralph C. Wood, Department of Religion, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC. Letter to Stuart Wright & Others enclosing draft of his annotations on Love in the Ruins (29 April 1996) TLS. 1 item. 1 p. ; 5) Ralph C. Wood, Department of Religion, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC. Omnibus letter to Stuart Wright & Others announcing his resignation from Wake Forest to take a position at Samford University, Birmingham, AL (21 March 1997) TLS & Envelope. 1 item. 2 p. ; Source : Cary Addition Box #159.035
Box 1 Folder k Symbol As Need [Literary Essay] by Walker Percy, Reprinted form Thought : Fordham University Quarterly, Vol. 29, no. 14 (Autumn 1954), pp. 381 - 390. Pamphlet. 1 item. 7 p. ; Note : Autographed "Walker Percy" on front cover ; Source : Cary Addition Box #115.000
Box 1 Folder l Correspondence of Shelby Foote & Walker Percy, The, edited by Jay Tolson (© 1997) Note : 1) Ralph C. Wood, Department of Religion and Philosophy, Samford University, Birmingham, AL. Letter to Stuart Wright citing the reference to Wright in the correspondence and enclosing his own review of the book in the Christian Century (14 Oct. 1997) ALS, Corrected typescript & Envelope. 1 item. 4 p. ; 2) Publication 526 (Rev. No. 79) Charitable Contributions For use in preparing 1979 returns, Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service ; Inscribed : "See p. 4" (1979) Pamphlet. 1 item. 4 p. ; 3) A Bill to Amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 to Provide for the Taxation of Artists' Income and Estates. 96th Congress, 2d Session, H.R. 7391 (20 May 1980) Pamphlet. 1 item. 4 p. ; 4) Stephen L. Neal (D-NC), Washington, DC. Letter to Stuart Wright responding to his question regarding tax treatment of writers and artists who donate their works to institutions ; enclosing Rep. Richard Gephardt's proposal H. R. 7391 (17 June 1980) TLS. 1 item. 1 p. ; 5) Hamilton Horton, Whiting, Horton and Hendrick. Memorandum to Stuart Wright (re : Mr. Walker Percy) regarding the tax treatment of his donations to academic institutions [ca. 1980] Mimeographed typescript. 1 item. 3 p. ; Source : Ludlow Addition Box #181.028
Box 1 Folder m Message of Auschwitz, The, by Walker Percy (© 1979) Note : 1) Stuart Wright note : "W. Percy / Garrett wrote review w/out even reading this!" (undated) AN. 1 item. 1 p. ; 2) Farrar, Straus, Giroux, New York, NY. Promotional biographical sketch for Walker Percy, The Thanatos Syndrome (ca. 1987) Photocopy typescript. 1 item. 1 p. ; 3) Promotional review of The Thanatos Syndrome with order and price information (6 April 1987) Photocopy clipping. 1 item. 1 p. ; Source : Ludlow Addition Box #172.016
Box 1 Folder n Walker Percy : A Bibliography, by Stuart Wright (© 1986) Note : 1) Meckler Publishing, Westport, CT. With Compliments! Card (ca. 1986) Broadside. 1 item. 1 p. ; 2) Meckler Publishing, Westport, CT. Bulletin of Bibliography Subscription Form (ca. 1986) Printed form. 1 item. 1 p. ; 3) Walker Percy, Covington, LA. Note to Stuart Wright : "I am delighted. Walker" (ca. 1986) ANS. 1 item. 1 p. ; Source : Ludlow Addition Box #180.017