George Washington Cable – författare

At the centre of this novel is a story of two lovers from feuding Creole families in early 19th century New Orleans. The romance of "the grandissimes" the masked ball at the beginning of the story, the conversations in patois, the scenes between reluctant but eventually blessed lovers, the colours of the Creole spring and the French quarter helped make George Washington Cable famous in America during the 1880s. But in contrast to the idealized romance is Cable's accurate, unflattering portrait of Creole gentility and his arguments for racial equality.

Set in the mysterious shadowed city of New Orleans in the years immediately following the Louisiana Purchase, George Washington Cable's classic novel of the Old South traces the declining fortunes of a family and their society as they struggle with long-standing divisions of race and class and with the ideals of democracy and liberty imposed by their new American rulers. The hero of the novel, Joseph Frowenfeld, is a young scientist who moves to Louisiana to make his fortune. An outsider, Frowenfeld learns the ways of the Creoles and of the few Americans in the city through his acquaintance with the proud Grandissime family. He comes to know Honore Grandissime, the young leader of the clan, as well as his half-brother, a prosperous free man of color also named Honore, who has the power to rescue his relations from financial ruin.