This is a critical study of an author long ranked with Howells, Twain, and James - his contemporaries and acquaintances - and generally regarded as the first Southern novelist to contribute a permanent classic to American literature. That novel, The Grandissimes, Edmund Wilson has called and "the first full length installment of Cable's anatomy of Southern society. and " From 1879, when Old Creole Days was published, to 1918, when his last two novels appeared, Cable's name was linked with his native New Orleans and the picturesque ante-bellum society he depicted with unsurpassed mastery. His charming tales of Creoles, Acadians, and quadroons have been acclaimed by generations of readers. No mere romancer, Cable possessed the insight of a social historian. Collections of his controversial essays on Southern problems are quoted and reprinted today for their relevance to current issues. All of his books reflect the experiences, circumstances, and changing character of a complex man who was famous throughout the nation as platform reader, editor, and reformer.In the course of fifteen years' study of the life and works of George W. Cable, PHILIP BUTCHER has published a number of articles on the Southern author and one earlier book, George W. Cable: The Northampton Years (1959). His research has brought to light considerable new source material, including the letters, now in Butler Library at Columbia U., that Cable wrote to Adelene Moffat during their twenty-year friendship. Information obtained during the past two years from interviews, correspondence, and unpublished material has been used in the preparation of... [this] complete reappraisal of his works. Philip Butcher is professor of English and chairman of the Div. of Humanities at Morgan State College, Baltimore, MD, where he has taught since 1947. Born and reared in Washington, DC, he holds AB and MA degrees from Harvard and a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia.