Description
Book SynopsisThis edition marks the first time that The Mysteries of New Orleans has been translated into English and proves that 150 years later, this vast, strange, and important novel remains as compelling as ever.
Trade ReviewUncovering the vices of a city that was steeped in sexual promiscuity of every variety and crimes of greed, passion and malice... Reizenstein invests a good many satiric jibes at religion, society and human nature in general. A mixture of naturalistic realism and gothic melodrama, Mysteries of New Orleans really focuses most of its attention on the city of its title. Reizenstein's greatest talent is for minute detail, and, under his scrutiny, very little that goes on in the city escapes his notice... Steven Rowan's astute and clearly written introduction and his very informative notes on each chapter are helpful in understanding the historic context of the book. His translation allows readers a glimpse into a city whose varied and intriguing population has created a potpourri as rich today as it was 150 years ago when Baron von Reizenstein took up residence and took up his pen. -- Mary McCay New Orleans Times-Picayune The essence of New Orleans is invested in a history of vice, vagrancy, and pirate vibes... What is [this] history exactly? In The Mysteries of New Orleans a novel written in the mid-nineteenth century by Baron Ludwig von Reizenstein, just published by Johns Hopkins University Press, the squalor is more vivid that anything we might mention today. The Baron was just reporting. Andrei Codrescu, NPR's All Things Considered Ethnic American literature has found legitimacy in the classroom, so this novel comes as a welcome surprise... This roman a clef include[s] scandalous depictions of salacious antebellum life amid the European, African, mulatto, and Creole societies that intermingled in the city... The book offers a rare and candid look into a much earlier time. A significant document. Choice 2003 Painstakingly reconstructed... Has... taken its place as a founding text for a city whose open and tolerant atmosphere was no longer any mystery at all. -- Christopher Capozzola Bay Windows 2005
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
Searching for a Key to The Mysteries
Memoranda for the Sympathetic Reader
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1. Lucy Wilson
Chapter 2. The Masquerade
Chapter 3. Two Sisters
Chapter 4. A Night After the Honeymoon
Chapter 5. A Welcome Guest
Chapter 6. Don Juan in Hell
Chapter 7. Parasina Brulard-Hotchkiss
Chapter 8. An Intermezzo and Further Events at Madame Brulard's
Chapter 9. The Southern Cross
Chapter 10. Mantis Religiosa
Chapter 11. The Negro Family
Chapter 12. Sulla
Chapter 13. The Manuscript
Part II
Chapter 14. Jenny and Frida
Chapter 15. Far Away
Chapter 16. The Assault on Looking-Glass Prairie
Chapter 17. Gretchen in the Bush
Chapter 18. Unexpected
Chapter 19. Searching for a Bride
Chapter 20. Lesbian Love
Chapter 21. Albert
Part III
Chapter 22. One Year Later
Chapter 23. Under The Live Oaks
Chapter 24. The Coffee Pickers
Chapter 25. The Prince of Württemberg
Chapter 26. Aunty Celestine
Chapter 27. Corybantic Fits
Chapter 28. In the Hamburg Mill
Chapter 29. Clubmen of the 99th and 100th Degree
Chapter 30. Under the Bed
Part IV
Prologue: The Fata Morgana of the South
Chapter 31. Angel and Genius
Chapter 32. On the Flight to Nineveh
Chapter 33. Interludes
Chapter 34. A Parrot in Cupid's Service
Chapter 35. A Letter From the West, or, The Voice of a Friend From Highland
Chapter 36. The Confession
Chapter 37. Complications and Revelations
Chapter 38. One Night in the Life of a Young Woman
Part V
Prologue: The Criminals' Dock on the Mesa
Chapter 39. Red Today, Dead Tomorrow
Chapter 40. The Nurse
Chapter 41. How It Happened
Chapter 42. The Reunion
Chapter 43. The Journey to the Place of Execution
Epilogue
Notes
