A Separate Country (57 page)

I began to make my way back there again and again. I found myself wandering the streets of New Orleans and reading about the city’s history. While this isn’t a complete bibliography by any means, I was well served by the following:

The Grandissimes
(novel), by George Washington Cable

Old Creole Days
(short stories), by George Washington Cable

The Awakening
(novel), by Kate Chopin

Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn
(short stories, journalism, etc., ed. by S. Frederick Starr)

New Orleans: The Place and the People
(history), by Grace King

The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld
, by Herbert Asbury

Fabulous New Orleans
(memoir), by Lyle Saxon

Degas in New Orleans
(cultural history), by Christopher Benfey

Degas and New Orleans
(exhibition catalog, published by the New Orleans Museum of Art)

French Quarter Manual: An Architectural Guide to New Orleans Vieux Carre
(a legendary work of architectural history, by the late, great Malcolm Heard)

Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization
(a collection of historical papers/chapters), ed. by Arnold R. Hirsch and Joseph Logsdon

Robert Hicks invites you to go to www.robert-hicks.com for more information about
A Separate Country
and
The Widow of the South
. You can also follow him on Twitter at
http://twitter.com/robert_hicks
.