Percy Rackett

Rackett in 1899, shortly before his enlistment

Percy Rackett was the author of *The Sunken Isle*, a popular adventure novel whose plot was based on a set of documents and artifacts relating to the Book Club that Rackett discovered in his family archives. Years later, the novel became a key part of Juno Boyd's, and eventually David Blackwood and Radu Savatier's, search for a lost city in the Amazon.

## Life

### Family

Percival Douglas "Percy" Rackett was born in Kent, England, in 1882 to Josiah Rackett, The Right Rev'd The Lord Bishop of Dover, and The Hon Louisa Rackett, née Bray. Josiah Rackett was known as a clergyman for his puritanical leanings, and for his short-lived crusade against the evils of photography. Louisa Rackett was a noted temperance crusader and founder of the Dover Christian Society for Women Against the Spread of Intemperance.

Rackett was educated at Winchester College, where he did well in history and modern languages, but ultimately turned down a place at the Cambridge Clergy Training School (now Westcott House) to serve in the 2nd Boer War.

### Military Service

Rackett and his twin brother, Cyril Ignatius Rackett, lied about their ages and joined the British Army in the early fall of 1899, just as hostilities between British South Africa and the Boer settlers of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State reached a boiling point. Rackett served in the King's Royal Rifle Corps, and saw particularly bloody action at the Battle of Talana Hill and the Battle of Spion Kop, where he was severely wounded and subsequently discharged on medical grounds.

His experiences in the war led to a severing of relations with his twin brother, who spent the war as part of the garrison at Kimberley, working as a liaison for Cecil Rhodes and aiding the administration of a concentration camp for Boer women and children.

### Departure to Paris

Following his discharge in 1900, Rackett spent some time in Cape Town before returning home to Kent. Shortly after his return, some time in late 1902, Rackett apparently discovered a chest of documents and artifacts relating to the Book Club hidden in the cellars of his family home, Ware Hall. At about the same time, seemingly coincidentally, Rackett's father confronted his son about his psychological instability and alcoholism, and presented him with an ultimatum: become a clergyman or get out. Rackett left Ware Hall for Paris and did not return.

### Paris and Creative Efforts

Rackett settled in the Saint-Germaine district of Paris, where he cultivated a circle of semi-successful artistic friends, as well as an opium addiction. Rackett himself aspired to writing and published several novels and books of poetry, most notably the serialized adventure novel *The Sunken Isle*, published 1907, whose modest commercial success funded some of Rackett's more outré artistic endeavors, including a book of illustrated poetry, written by Rackett and his some-time lover Julie Mireau, and illustrated by another some-time lover, minor Expressionist painter Ralph Kieslowski. The book, entitled *L'amour et les fleurs du printemps,* was banned in five countries for obscenity and lack of moral content and has since largely been forgotten.

Rackett suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and drug addiction for most of his life, and at least some of these factors were thought to contribute to his mysterious death in 1913.