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Grace King• New Orleans Lady of Letters DISTAFF, JIAIICH 1980, PAGE 6 Grace King• New Orleans Lady of Letters by Jan Boney ''experiences, reminisences.' episodes, picked up as only women know how to pick them up from a Other women's lives, and told as only women know how to relate them." wrote of life as she knew it, was a empting ·to exp tlin to and that was from her vantage death in 1932, is of particular in- Richard Watson Glider, a Nor· point as a woman. Most of her terest to New Orleans and thern editor in New Orleans for the major characters are women: tho&! Southern women who are in· Cotton Exposition, why New that a-re men are described from a terested in women's litEirature of Orleans felt that George woman's point of view. the past. Grace King offers us a Washington Cable had "stabbed Monsieur Mott keen, feminine perception of the city in the back." One of her most typical stories nineteenth century life in New believed black people to be supenor is her first, Monsieur Motte. A Orleans. to white, according to Miss King, quadroon hairdresser, Marcelite, Grace King was born in New and exploited t.he Northern has, in the name of a non-existent Orleans in 1852, where she lived un- assumption of grandscale white uncle, supported the young orphsn til her death, except for two years hatred and cruelty, in order to be Marie Modeste through boarding spent on the family's plantation published in the Northern press. schooL As her generous deception during the Civil War. Her father To this Gilder challenged, "Why is revealed, Marcelite is overcome was a lawyer: the family, although New Pn'nceton Reuiew. Many tme do not some of you write better?" with anguish and guilt. Grace not wealthy enjoyed a comfortable stories appeared in rapid suc- The next morning she wrote in one King's sympathetic treatment of social position. At a time when cession. The bulk of her writing sitting Monsieur Motte. Marcelite and the injustice of her much of New Orleans' population was written before the tum of the Over Simplified dilemma can hardly be seen as a was French speaking and Catholic, century. This account has been used to defense of the racial caste system her family was Protestant and Her literary career gave her the oversimplify everything about as some scholars would maintain. "American". Her other, whom opportunity to travel. Friendships Grace King's writing into tidy It is rather an example of the por- Miss King describes as a "wonder- with her publishers led to introduc- categories which do injustice to her trayal of the warm affectionate ful raconteuse" (storyteller), grew tions to other literary figures of the work. She is grouped, along with bonds between women that is up in the French Quarter speaking time. Armed with letters of in- Cable, Joel Chandler Harris, Mark typical of Grace King's fiction. more French than English. It is to troduction she traveled extensively Twain, KaU! Chopin, and others. as Her popularity came im- Mrs. King that the author at- in the North and in Europe, a "local colorist." Local color mediately with the publishing of tributes her own love of a good making lifelong friendships and flourished in American fiction of her first short stories but faded af- story, and it seems that the literary connections. Among her the latter half of the nineteenth ter the turn of the century until she mother's infectious love of the friends were Samuel and Olivia century. It often had a point to was known only in Louisiana, French language was caught by Clemens, Julia Ward Howe and a make, as in Cable's work. The where she was highly respected the daughter. host of French writers. writing exploited local dialects and and honored. Her reputation has customs to a national readership, Medals Literary Salon strengthened in recent years by the Her education was very French. as in the writings of Mark Twain. addition of her work to university She attended the Institute St. In New Orleans too, Grace King Although it is true that some of courses in Southern and women's Louis, on Burgundy Street in the was at the center of a busy social Miss King's writings did make a literature, and by the publishing of lower Quarter where she won life. She presided over a literary point, that point was seldom the a major work by Robert Bush, medals for French composition in salon at her home Friday after- defense of the Southern Grace King of New Orleans. I hope competition against French girls. noons. She took on many other ac- aristocratic class. She could write that her popularity is further in· After her graduation she attended tivities as well, such as an active scathingly of a spoiled heiress and creased by, the growing interest of role in the Louisiana Historical Mme. Cenas school a few blocks touchingly of a black servant. Of- Southern women in our own past. away, where Mme. Cenas' Society and the founding of Le ten it is impossible to perceive a past. daughter Heloise was the deman- Petit Salon, a literary discussion particular social view in her fiction. ding instructor of English com- group. Even though her writing may be position, who made her young Her work was not limited to justly included in the local color ..... student do sometimes a dozen short stories. She was the author of genre, it is not really direct.ly in- rewrites. When she finished her several novels, one of which, The fluenced by other works of the formal education, she spoke and Pleassant Ways of St. Medard, a genre. She was a close friend of wrote French and English equally thinly disguised piece of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), but well. She was well prepared for a autobiography, is a fine novel. It his writing does not appear to have literary career. offers illuminating insight into greatly affected her own. She does But her literary career did not Reconstruction in New Orleans as not greatly exploit dialects; her begin immediately. Although she experienced by the residents of St. portrayal of New Orleans knew that she wanted to be a Bernard, which in those days was uniquenesses is not highly writer at the age of nine, she was in "an hour away from Canal Street exaggerated as in most local color her mid-30's when her work was by mule car." Her non-fiction in- works. first published. Her time had been cludes a great deal of short Her fiction is probably more occupied by her position as the biographical sketches, essays, in· closely related to French realism, eldest daughter in a socially- t roductions to books of other with which she became familiar at prominent family. She wrote of authors, a vast collection of letters the Institute St. Louis. Like the this period in her memoirs, "the to her many friends and acquain- realist's writings, her fiction bears time had not come yet.'' tances, and several books of li_ttleplot. Instead there is descrip- The Cotton Exposition of 1884- Louisiana and New Orleans tiOn of characters and their lives, 1885 brought about the start of her history. chosen out of her own experien- literary career. The city was full of Her short stories were published stimulating and intellectual in the popular magazines of the Another important but people, many of whom were enter- day such as Harper's Magazine, overlooked influence on her work is tained at the King residence. It Century, and Outlook. Many were that of the oral tradit.ion, the was the encouragement that she later collected into three volumes, feminine art of story telling. In the needed. Her first story, Monsieur Monsieur Motte, Balcony Stories, preface to Balcony Stories she ex- Motte, was published in 1886 in the and Tales of a Time and Place. plains that balcony stories are, .
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