Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) prowled the streets of New Orleans
from 1877 to 1888 before moving on to a new life and global fame as
a chronicler of Japan. Hearn's influence on our perceptions of New
Orleans, however, has unjustly remained unknown.
In ten years of serving as a correspondent and selling his
writing in such periodicals as the "New Orleans Daily Item,"
"Times-Democrat," "Harper's Weekly," and "Scribner's Magazine" he
crystallized the way Americans view New Orleans and its south
Louisiana environs. Hearn was prolific, producing colorful and
vivid sketches, vignettes, news articles, essays, translations of
French and Spanish literature, book reviews, short stories, and
woodblock prints.
He haunted the French Quarter to cover such events as the death
of Marie Laveau. His descriptions of the seamy side of New Orleans,
tainted with voodoo, debauchery, and mystery made a lasting
impression on the nation. Denizens of the Crescent City and
devotees who flock there for escapades and pleasures will recognize
these original tales of corruption, of decay and benign frivolity,
and of endless partying. With his writing, Hearn virtually invented
the national image of New Orleans as a kind of alternative reality
to the United States as a whole.
S. Frederick Starr, a leading authority on New Orleans and
Louisiana culture, edits the volume, adding an introduction that
places Hearn in a social, historical, and literary context.
Hearn was sensitive to the unique cultural milieu of New Orleans
and Louisiana. During the decade that he spent in New Orleans,
Hearn collected songs for the well-known New York music critic
Henry Edward Krehbiel and extensively studied Creole French, making
valuable and lasting contributions to ethnomusicology and
linguistics.
Hearn's writings on Japan are famous and have long been
available. But "Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn"
brings together a selection of Hearn's nonfiction on New Orleans
and Louisiana, creating a previously unavailable sampling. In these
pieces Hearn, an Anglo-Greek immigrant who came to America by way
of Ireland, is alternately playful, lyrical, and morbid. This
gathering also features ten newly discovered sketches. Using his
broad stylistic palette, Hearn conjures up a lost New Orleans which
later writers such as William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams used
to evoke the city as both reality and symbol.
Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was a prolific writer, critic,
amateur engraver, and journalist. His many books-on a diverse range
of subjects-include "La Cuisine Creole: A Collection of Culinary
Recipes" (1885), "Gombo Zhebes" (1885), "Chita" (1889), and
"Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan" (1894).
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