Walker Percy papers, circa 1910-1996 | WorldCat.org (original) (raw)

Summary:The collection includes drafts, notes, and other materials relating to all of Percy's major works and to many of his shorter efforts. Also included are subject files containing source materials and other items relating to authors and topics in which he was particularly interested, including religious themes in literature and the intellectual life of the American South. There are also materials relating to John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces (1980), which Percy helped publish. The collection contains a large amount of correspondence with authors, critics, and others. Most significant among Percy's correspondents were Shelby Foote, a life-long friend; Caroline Gordon, who, in the early 1950s, offered Percy in-depth critiques of his work and pointers on writing in general; and Donald Barthelme, who wrote about Percy's submissions to the journal Forum. Other correspondents include Zoltan Abadi Nagy, Malcolm Bell, Cleanth Brooks, Gary M. Ciuba, James Collins, Ansley Cope, John William Corrington, Robert Woodham Daniel, John N. Deely, Clifton Fadiman, Robert Giroux, Peter Handke, John Hofer, Paul Horgan, Kenneth Laine Ketner, Victor A. Kramer, Bernald Malamud, Jacques Maritain, Doug Marlette, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, Walter J. Ong, J.F. Powers, Thomas A. Sebeok, Elizabeth Spencer, Lewis P. Simpson, Allen Tate, Mark Taylor, Gene Usdin, Henry Babcock Veatch, Eudora Welty, and C. Vann Woodward. There are also over 200 formal and informal photographs, most of Percy with his family, including his uncle William Alexander Percy, but some of Percy with Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Eudora Welty, Cleanth Brooks, C. Vann Woodward, Elizabeth Spencer, Louis D. Rubin Jr., Ernest Gaines, Shelby Foote, and others. Also included are several hats and a sweater belonging to Percy