Grace King's stories offer vivid glimpses into Louisiana's heritage, set in the rural bayou and the lively French Quarter of New Orleans. Born to a prominent family in New Orleans, Grace King nevertheless experienced hardship in the years following the American Civil War. Her character's in these lively stories range from the impoverished to the wealthy and distinguished; the full social strata of Louisiana are depicted as it was in the mid-19th century. With the state's French heritage comes outpourings of patriotism and recollections of Napoleon's glory, while Christian adherence underpins much of the society. Bayou L'Ombre is a story notable for its autobiographical elements and setting during the U.S. Civil War. The confusion and chaos of the time serves as a backdrop to the dramas unfolding in the marshy districts around the family sugar plantation. The occupying federal forces, and rumors of fighting somewhere off in territory further north convey tension, drama and uncertainty.

Grace King was an only child brought up by her mother, a single parent. She had a normal childhood and was always a high achiever with a positive attitude. But without her father's acceptance and love, underlying feelings of rejection, inadequacy, and guilt engulfed her. Her great-grandmother died, and Grace had her heart broken by her first love; guilt, regret, and self-hatred soon set the foundation for her to fall victim to the vicious grip of bulimia.

For more than ten years, she struggled to free herself from bulimia's hold and became lonely, depressed, and desperate. After years of self-destruction, disappointment, and regret, her conscience collapsed, and she longed for her healthy and meaningful life back more than ever. Grace was forever grateful for the friendships she forged and for the relationships she endured, knowing how much they had taught her about the meaning and purpose of life. She was always hopeful that one day, looking in the mirror would bring back the feeling of acceptance and happiness to a now repulsed, sad, and lost soul.

She embarked on a transformational journey that depended on the choices she made each day. Her heart was filled with endless hope, courage, and commitment to searching for the solution toward knowing herself again and being true to herself. Through prayer, she found the path that led her to the light and allowed herself to be cured.

It was through surrendering her bulimia to God, she learnt to love and forgive herself and she finally embraced her healing. She is a survivor and hopes her story will help save other lives too.

Samburu. The promised land for a jungle kingdom within a land of sunshine called Kenya. Nearly all the animals are God-fearing Christians. Every Sunday, the pets of God worship him under a sacred tree and Socialize with their neighbors. Sadly, no one ever invites Hyena, a lonely atheist, agonist, or something who desperately wants to be someone's friend.

The dragon god has chosen a holy slumber rather than annihilate them all for serving an imaginary unseen God. Meanwhile, the animals decide to realign their allegiance and feed the god in his sleep hoping when he wakes up, he will make everyone as wise and powerful as gods. A stone altar is built for food offerings. Soon the animals are bowing and tithing the best of their meager food to the dragon. But the dragon god is livid, and chaos is about to erupt on the top of Devil's Mountain.

In this Christian fairy tale, the Dragon slayer slowly unsheathes his sword. But it is up to the animals of the kingdom to let him save their future. They must call him by "The Name."

"The past is our only real possession in life. It is the one piece of property of which time cannot deprive us; it is our own in a way that nothing else is. It never leaves our consciousness. In a word we are our past; we do not cling to it, it clings to us," wrote Grace King at the close of her remarkable career. Historian, novelist, essayist, short story writer, and friend or acquaintance of many of the period's leading literary figures, King chronicles life in the transitional world of postbellum New Orleans. A realist in the Jamesian manner, her work thematically centers on giving voice to the displaced, marginalized women of the Old Order South. Her avowed patrician orthodoxies are at times in conflict with her artistic commitment to truth-telling, and her work reveals the ironies and tensions in her dual roles as a southern woman and a writer. Her popular stories were first collected in book form in 1893 after originally appearing in Century magazine. Dedicated to her mother, a "charming raconteuse," the tales pay homage to all storytelling, story-loving women who give value and meaning to workaday lives through the life-defining intimacies of shaping and sharing stories.

Grace King's stories offer vivid glimpses into Louisiana's heritage, set in the rural bayou and the lively French Quarter of New Orleans. Born to a prominent family in New Orleans, Grace King nevertheless experienced hardship in the years following the American Civil War. Her character's in these lively stories range from the impoverished to the wealthy and distinguished; the full social strata of Louisiana are depicted as it was in the mid-19th century. With the state's French heritage comes outpourings of patriotism and recollections of Napoleon's glory, while Christian adherence underpins much of the society. Bayou L'Ombre is a story notable for its autobiographical elements and setting during the U.S. Civil War. The confusion and chaos of the time serves as a backdrop to the dramas unfolding in the marshy districts around the family sugar plantation. The occupying federal forces, and rumors of fighting somewhere off in territory further north convey tension, drama and uncertainty.

THERE is much of life passed on the balcony in a country where the summer unrolls in six moon-lengths, and where the nights have to come with a double endowment of vastness and splendor to compensate for the tedious, sun-parched days. And in that country the women love to sit and talk together of summer nights, on balconies, in their vague, loose, white garments, - men are not balcony sitters, - with their sleeping children within easy hearing, the stars breaking the cool darkness, or the moon making a show of light - oh, such a discreet show of light - through the vines. And the children inside, waking to go from one sleep into another, hear the low, soft mother-voices on the balcony, talking about this person and that, old times, old friends, old experiences; and it seems to them, hovering a moment in wakefulness, that there is no end of the world or time, or of the mother-knowledge; but, illimitable as it is, the mother-voices and the mother-love and protection fill it all, - with their mother's hand in theirs, children are not afraid even of God, - and they drift into slumber again, their little dreams taking all kinds of pretty reflections from the great unknown horizon outside, as their fragile soap-bubbles take on reflections from the sun and clouds. Experiences, reminiscences, episodes, picked up as only women know how to pick them up from other women's lives, - or other women's destinies, as they prefer to call them, - and told as only women know how to relate them; what God has done or is doing with some other woman whom they have known - that is what interests women once embarked on their own lives, - the embarkation takes place at marriage, or after the marriageable time, - or, rather, that is what interests the women who sit of summer nights on balconies. For in those long-moon countries life is open and accessible, and romances seem to be furnished real and gratis, in order to save, in a languor-breeding climate, the ennui of reading and writing books. Each woman has a different way of picking up and relating her stories, as each one selects different pieces, and has a personal way of playing them on the piano.

This is a new release of the original 1932 edition.

This is a new release of the original 1932 edition.