The Grandissimes: A Novel (Brown Thrasher books)

by George Washington Cable (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  1988

  $38.49

  Set in the mysterious, shadowed city of New Orleans in the years immediately following the Louisiana Purchase, Cable's classic novel of the Old South traces the declining fortunes of a family 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.

• Used

  Paperback
  1989

  $3.28

  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.