These six essays, originally printed in The Southern Quarterly, focus on
the importance of the first modern novel to deal honestly with racial
complexities in the South and with the transitional Creole society in
which the attendant racial questions arose. The Grandissimes, set in the
New Orleans of 1803 and published in 1880, is known as George Washington
Cable's masterwork. In this novel he grappled with his love of the South
and with some of the region's values which he found abhorrent. To
commemorate the centennial of its publication, these essays attest to
both the importance of Cable and of the novel. W. Kenneth Holditch's
photo-essay depicts Cable's New Orleans as it exists today. Among the
assessments is the editor's discussion of the southern racial dilemma as
represented in Honor Grandissime. A lengthy annotated bibliography
enhances this collection honoring the work of a local color writer, who,
after Mark Twain, was the most notable southern author of his day.