The New Orleans of George Washington Cable

"A pioneering local-color writer about Creole New Orleans and a public advocate for black equality in his native South during and after Reconstruction, George Washington Cable (1844-1925) depicted in his writing the clash between American newcomers and a quaint but proud French-speaking population in post-Louisiana Purchase New Orleans. His work, including the short-story collection Old Creole Days (1879) and his most famous novel, The Grandissimes (1880), received widespread critical acclaim and was serialized in the country's best highbrow magazines. In 1880, Cable was commissioned to write a "historical sketch" of pre-Civil War New Orleans for a special section of the Tenth U.S. Census. Although subsequently revised and published as Creoles of Louisiana, Cable's original piece never appeared in print again except as a facsimile reprint. With The New Orleans of George Washington Cable, Lawrence N. Powell presents this rare text in its entirety for the first time, including Cable's copious footnotes and other material deleted from the original census publication by its editors."--book jacket.