1844-1925, Writer and critic Cable wrote of Creole New Orleans, and he has been called the most important southern artist working in the late 19th century, as well as the first modern southern writer. He is praised both for his courageous essays on civil rights, such as The Silent South (1885) and The Negro Question (1890), and for his early fiction about New Orleans, especially Old Creole Days (1879) The Grandissimes (1880), and Madame Delphine (1881). Cable was not a Creole himself, but he had deep roots in New Orleans. He was born and grew up there, and, after service as a Confederate soldier, he returned to live and work in the city until 1885, when he moved to Massachusetts. Cable continued to write about New Orleans and Louisiana throughout his long career, most notably in Dr. Sevier (1884), The Creoles of Louisiana (1884), and the Acadian pastoral Bonaventure (1888). In all, he published 14 novels and collections of short fiction, with his last novel, Lovers of Louisiana, appearing in 1918, just seven years before his death.
