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The Walker Percy Project

PRIMARY RESOURCES

Walker Percy's Writings on Language (By Original Publication and Date)

A bibliography of his writings on language listed by original publication and date, including books and essays

Percy's Writings on Language by Book (by Chronological Date)

The following bibliography covers the period 1954-2019. The majority of the essays listed are compiled in The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other (1975). Percy's second non-fiction work, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book (1983), provides a lay introduction to his theories of language, in particular its "A Semiotic Primer of the Self."

As posthumous works, the essay collection Signposts in a Strangeland (1991) published one previously unavailable language-related essay entitled "Is a Theory of Man Possible?". In turn, a book-length work entitled Symbol and Existence: A Study in Meaning: Explorations of Human Nature (2019) features numerous previously unpublished writings by Percy on language and provides a systematic framework for understanding his intellectual perspectives on the subject of language.

Additional Resource: See Walker Percy's Writings on Language (An Annotated Listing) for an annotated listing of the following publications.

Return to Semiotics Overview page.
Return to Primary Book Descriptions page.

Percy's Writings on Language by Books and Essays (by Chronological Date)

The following abbreviation key identifies in which book a particular essay appears. Percy's first semiotic essay was published in 1954.

MB = Message in the Bottle*
LC = Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book
SS = Signposts in a Strangeland
SE = Symbol and Existence: A Study in Meaning: Explorations of Human Nature

*Note: The essays below listed in brackets [ ] indicate essays in the Message in the Bottle that do not treat language as a topic, but which are included in this bibliography so as to provide a comprehensive listing of the essays included in the book.