PRIMARY RESOURCES
Major Essays by Walker Percy
A bibliography of his essays on language, fiction, and others of note
The following headings outline a primary bibliography of major essays by Walker Percy. All titles are listed in chronological order unless otherwise noted. For individual book descriptions, see the Project's Books by Percy section.
Abbreviation Key:
MB = Message in the Bottle
SS = Signposts in a Strangeland
On Language
Note — [brackets] around an essay in this section denote an essay in Message in the Bottle not focused on language.
- "Symbol as Need." Thought, 29 (Autumn 1954), 381-90. Essay, in Message in the Bottle [MB]. Reprinted in Sequicentennial issue of Thought, Vol. 65, No. 258.
- "Symbol as Hermeneutic in Existentialism: A Possible Bridge from Empiricism." Philosophy and Phenomenonlogical Research, 16 (June 1956), 522-30. Essay, in MB as "Symbol as Hermeneutic in Existentialism."
- ["The Man on the Train: Three Existential Modes." Partisan Review, 23 (Fall 1956), 478-94. Essay, in MB as "The Man on the Train."]
- "Semiotic and a Theory of Knowledge." The Modern Schoolman, 34 (May 1957), 225-46. Essay, in MB.
- "The Act of Naming." Forum, 1 (Summer 1957), 4-9. Essay, in MB as "The Mystery of Language."
- "Metaphor as Mistake." The Sewanee Review, 64 (Winter 1958), 79-99. Essay, in MB.
- "Symbol, Consciousness, and Intersubjectivity." The Journal of Philosophy, 55 (17 June 1958), 631-41. Essay, in MB.
- ["The Loss of the Creature." Forum, 2 (Fall 1958), 6-14. Essay, in MB.]
- "Culture: The Antinomy of the Scientific Method." The New Scholasticism, 32 (October 1958), 443-75. Essay, in MB.
- "The Message in the Bottle." Thought, 34 (Autumn 1959), 405-33. Essay, in MB.
- "Naming and Being." The Personalist, 41 (Spring 1960), 148-57. Essay, in Signposts in a Strange Land [SS].
- "The Symbolic Structure of Interpersonal Process." Psychiatry: A Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes, 24 (February 1961), 39-52. Essay, in MB.
- "Symbol and Existence: A Study of Meaning," unpublished manuscript of 318 pages compiled in 1960-61; in Percy collection at UNC-Chapel Hill; miscellaneous chapters published as essays.
- ["Notes for a Novel about the End of the World." Katallagete, 3 (Winter 1967-68), 7-14. Essay, in MB.]
- "Toward a Triadic Theory of Meaning." Psychiatry: A Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes, 35 (February 1972), 1-19. Essay, in MB.
- "The Delta Factor." The Southern Review, 11 (January ,1975), 29-64. Essay, in MB.
- The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1975.
- "A Theory of Language." First published in MB, 298-327.
- Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983. Especially "A Semiotic Primer of the Self," pp. 86-126.
- "The Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind," excerpted as "The Divided Creature" in The Wilson Quarterly, 13 (Summer 1989), 77-87. Also printed in Design for Arts in Education (January 1, 1990) Vol. 91, No. 3, p. 2. In SS, pp. 271-291.
- Signposts in a Strange Land. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1991. Listed essays.
- "Is a Theory of Man Possible?". In SS, pp. 111-129. [Unpublished before SS.]
On Fiction
- "The Man on the Train: Three Existential Modes." Partisan Review, 23 (Fall 1956), 478-94. Essay, in Message in the Bottle [MB] as "The Man on the Train."
- "Notes for a Novel about the End of the World." Katallagete, (Winter 1967-68), 7-14. Essay, in MB. Also published in Katallagete, 3 (1970): 5-12.
- "The State of the Novel: Dying Art or New Science?" Michigan Quarterly Review, 16 (Fall 1977), 359-73. Essay, in Signposts in a Strange Land [SS].
- How to Be an American Novelist in Spite of Being Southern and Catholic. Lafayette: University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1984. Essay, in SS.
- Diagnosing the Modern Malaise. New Orleans: Faust, 1985. Essay, in SS.
- "The Diagnostic Novel: On the Uses of Modern Fiction," Harper's, 272 (June 1986), 39-45.
- Novel Writing in an Apocalyptic Time. New Orleans: Faust, 1986. Essay, in SS.
- "Physician as Novelist," Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture (Rockford, IL) 3 (May 1989), 10-12. Essay, in SS.
Others of Note (Philosophical)
- "The Loss of the Creature." Forum, 2 (Fall 1958), 6-14. Essay, in MB.
- "The Coming Crisis in Psychiatry," America 96 (January 5, 1957) 391-93, (January 12, 1957) 415-18. Essay, in SS.