Bayou Folk

by Taylor Anderson (Editor), Kate Chopin

Overview

Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty (February 8, 1850 - August 22, 1904), was a U.S. author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is now considered by some scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century feminist authors of Southern or Catholic background, such as Zelda Fitzgerald.
Of maternal French and paternal Irish descent, Katherine O' Flaherty was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She married and moved with her husband to New Orleans. They later lived in the country in Cloutierville, Louisiana. From 1892 to 1895, Chopin wrote short stories for both children and adults that were published in such national magazines as Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, The Century Magazine, and The Youth's Companion. Her stories aroused controversy because of her subjects and her approach; they were condemned as immoral by some critics.
Her major works were two short story collections: Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Her important short stories included "Désirée's Baby" (1893), a tale of miscegenation in antebellum Louisiana, "The Story of an Hour" (1894), and "The Storm"(1898)."The Storm" is a sequel to "At the Cadian Ball," which appeared in her first collection of short stories, Bayou Folk.
Chopin also wrote two novels: At Fault (1890) and The Awakening (1899), which are set in New Orleans and Grand Isle, respectively. The characters in her stories are usually residents of Louisiana. Many of her works are set in Natchitoches in north central Louisiana, a region where she lived.
Within a decade of her death, Chopin was widely recognized as one of the leading writers of her time.In 1915, Fred Lewis Pattee wrote, "some of Chopin's work is equal to the best that has been produced in France or even in America. She displayed what may be described as a native aptitude for narration amounting almost to genius."
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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781978102910
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	10/09/2017
Pages:	100
Sales rank:	870,074
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.21(d)

About the Author

Kate Chopin (1850-1904) is an American writer best known for her stories about the inner lives of sensitive, daring women. Her novel The Awakening and her short stories are read today in countries around the world, and she is widely recognized as one of America's essential authors.

Her short stories were well received in in the 1890s and were published by some of America's most prestigious magazines-Vogue, the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Young People, the Youth's Companion, and the Century. A few stories were syndicated by the American Press Association. Many of her stories also appeared in her two published collections, Bayou Folk(1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897), both of which received good reviews from critics across the country who praised them for their graceful descriptions of the lives of Creoles, Acadians, African-Americans, and other people in Louisiana. Twenty-six of her stories are children's stories-those published in or intended for children's or family magazines-the Youth's Companion and others. By the late 1890s Kate Chopin was well known among American readers of magazine fiction.

Her early novel At Fault (1890) was not much noticed, but The Awakening (1899) was widely condemned. Critics called it morbid, vulgar, and disagreeable. Chopin's work was mostly forgotten after her death, but, beginning in the 1950s, scholars rediscovered it and praised it for its truthful depictions of women's lives.

Table of Contents

	A No-Account Creole	11
	In and Out of Old Natchitoches	53
	In Sabine	77
	A Very Fine Fiddle	93
	Beyond the Bayou	97
	Old Aunt Peggy	107
	The Return of Alcibiade	109
	A Rude Awakening	121
	The Benitous' Slave	135
	Desiree's Baby	139
	A Turkey Hunt	149
	Madame Celestin's Divorce	153
	Love on the Bon-Dieu	159
	Loka	179
	Boulot and Boulotte	191
	For Marse Chouchoute	195
	A Visit to Avoyelles	207
	A Wizard from Gettysburg	213
	Ma'ame Pelagie	225
	At the 'Cadian Ball	239
	La Belle Zoraide	257
	A Gentleman of Bayou Teche	267
	A Lady of Bayou St. John	279

Editorial Reviews

What Harding & Offdean had called a piece of land on Red River was better known to the people of Natchitoches parish as "the old Santien place."

In the days of Lucien Santien and his hundred slaves, it had been very splendid in the wealth of its thousand acres. But the war did its work, of course. Then Jules Santien was not the man to mend such damage as the war had left. His three sons were even less able than he had been to bear the weighty inheritance of debt that came to them with the dismantled plantation; so it was a deliverance to all when Harding & Offdean, the New Orleans creditors, relieved them of the place with the responsibility and indebtedness which its ownership had entailed.

Hector, the eldest, and Grégoire, the youngest of these Santien boys, had gone each his way. Placide alone tried to keep a desultory foothold upon the land which had been his and his forefathers'. But he too was given to wandering - within a radius, however, which rarely took him so far that he could not reach the old place in an afternoon of travel, when he felt so inclined.

There were acres of open land cultivated in a slovenly fashion, but so rich that cotton and corn and weed and "Cocoa-grass" grew rampant if they had only the semblance of a chance.

From the Publisher