Strange True Stories of Louisiana [Paperback]

George Cable (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 30, 1994

A compilation of seven factual accounts of Louisiana life and history.

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About the Author

One of the greatest and most celebrated Southern writers of his day, George Washington Cable (1844-1925) helped lead the Local Color movement of the late 1800s with his pioneering use of dialect and his skill with the short-story form. A Southern reformist, Cable faithfully depicted the Creole way of life during the transitional post-Civil War period. After serving in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, he began to write for the New Orleans Picayune. Cable has been called the most important Southern artist working in the late nineteenth century, as well as the first modern Southern writer. A complete listing of his books published by Pelican is available by request.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Pelican Publishing; 1st Pelican ed edition (May 30, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565540387
• ISBN-13: 978-1565540385
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #578,654 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strange True Stories of Louisiana, August 31, 2000

By 

PLAQUEMINE LOCK STATE HISTORIC SITE (PLAQUEMINE, LA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Strange True Stories of Louisiana (Paperback)

Seven unusual, true stories set in Louisiana comprise the reissue of George Washington Cable's STRANGE TRUE STORIES OF LOUISIANA. First published in 1888, these stories are a gold mine of cultural lore and historical facts. As interesting as the stories themselves are the accounts of how Cable acquired them.

"The Young Aunt with White Hair" is set in Spanish occupied Louisiana in 1782 and describes the horrors experienced by a young woman on the long journey to New Orleans from Germany: robbed by sailors on the ship; an Indian attack near the mouth of the Mississippi River, during which her husband and baby are brutally murdered; being held captive by Indians and told she was to be the chief's dinner. Her ordeal was so great that her hair turned snow white in a matter of hours, and she never recovered from the experience.

Humor and suspense make "The Two Sisters" just plain fun to read. Two teenage girls- one a tomboy and one a demure, sweet lady- undertake a dangerous trek across the Atchafalaya swamp to North Louisiana in 1795. It's not only a good story, but the details of clothing, places and people are priceless. "Plaquemine was composed of a church, two stores, as many drinking-shops, and about fifty cabins, one of which was the courthouse. Here lived a multitude of Catalans, Acadians, Negros and Indians. ..It was at Plaquemine that we bade adieu to the old Mississippi.."

The story if "Alix de Morainville" reads like a fairy tale: the birth-deformed baby farmed out to a peasant family; the arranged marriage that turns out to be a love match; the convent stay; the marriage of dear friend Madelaine to Count Louis de la Houssaye and the couple's departure for the Louisiana colony; presentation to Queen Marie Antoinette; Aleix's grand wedding at Notre Dame Cathedral; the onset of the French Revolution; widowhood; rescue; and flight first to England and then to Louisiana.

The other stories are "Salome Muller, The White Slave," "The Haunted House in Royal Street," "Attalie Brouillard," and "War Diary of a Union Woman in the South."

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strange true stories from Creole Louisianna, February 23, 2003

By 

Virgil Brown (White Oak, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Strange True Stories of Louisiana (Paperback)

As we traveled along Interstate 10 between New Orleans and "Red Baton," I mused about the girders which held the highway up out of the bayous. What must travel or life in general have been like in that part of Louisianna a century or so ago.

George Washington Cable first collected these seven stories about Louisianna and published them in 1888. He calls them true stories. They are stories from times before his own from 1782 to after the Civil War. At the same time these stories are strange to Cable because life had changed so much in Louisianna between the time that the stories occurred and his own time.

The stories start with the story of Louise who came to Louisianna and almost became the dinner of a local chief. This tragic tale is quickly followed by the "bright and happy" story of Francoise and Suzanne who travel through the "wilds" of Atchafalaya. Alix's story is next. She was once introduced to Marie Antoinette. Then the French Revolution came and Alix lost her first husband. She will be a character that I long admire but I ask you to read the story to see why. Salome Muller was a German who lost most of her family enroute to Louisianna. (Some 1200 of the 1800 who attempted to make that trip never arrived.) Salome became a slave. Yet some 20 years or so later her family took her case to the State Supreme Court to free her. The
"haunted house" is the house of Madame Lalaurie who chose to save her possessions rather than her slaves when a fire burned her house. The story of Attalie Brouillard reminds me of the con men of the movie "The Sting" with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The last story is a diary of a Union woman who lived in the South during the Civil War. To these I would like to add the story of George W Cable who begins his book by telling his readers how he got these other seven stories.

These are true stories from people who lived in Creole Louisianna, a time strange to us now.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Louisiana stories, May 27, 2010

By 

Tommie L. Marsters (Poulsbo, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Strange True Stories of Louisiana (Paperback)

As a fourth-generation Louisianian, I consider many of its true stories to be strange. It's a strange state, but one learns to love, or at least tolerate, some of its quirks. I found myself wishing that George W. Cable had written a much larger book because these stories are fascinating. The stories from the diaries of women who lived in early and Civil War Louisiana were the most intriguing. (In my opinion, Southern women's diaries have given history a much more feasible, human touch.) I now understand the Siege of Vicksburg because it was presented to us from the viewpoint of a civilian woman who lived through it. Cable is a trustworthy source of Louisiana-ana.