Madame Delphine

by George Washington Cable

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction

55 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1881

About the author

George Washington Cable was an American novelist notable for the realism of his portrayals of Creole life in his native Louisiana.

Reviews

[Miles Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magnificent novel that explored the sin of racism in the American South. I want give away any spoilers, but this is considered one of Cable’s two greatest works for a reason. The characters and the plot are haunting. The narrative’s disturbing resolution made Cable, a Southern Presbyterian with progressive views on race in Nineteenth Century New Orleans, a bit of a pariah.

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

A sentimental story tackling racist marriage laws.

[Mark Stephenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sentimental evocation of a long gone era in New Orleans when it was common, even expected that white men of substance would maintain a mulatto, quadroon, or octaroon mistress but marriage between whites and blacks (of any category) was illegal. Pere Jerome, a Catholic priest, performs a key role in enabling the marriage of two sympathetic and nicely characterized lovers to whom race seems an insuperable obstacle. The success of this story in its day (1881) may have helped pave the way for liberalization of laws restricting interracial marriage.

[Reg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wtf. That was not what I expected.

[Maddie Cramer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Instead of reading Cable’s interpretation of mixed race relationships in nineteenth-century Louisiana, I should have read Charles Chesnutt’s.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading online...also found articles he wrote of the great floods and "plagues" of New Orleans during the 1800's...

[Tocotin · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was very sad, but it made me want to read more of Cable.