A NIGHT IN ACADIE

1897. Chicago: Way & Williams, 1897. Original very dark blue cloth pictorially decorated in green and silver.

First Edition of the author's third book, which, like her second book BAYOU FOLK (1894), is a collection of short stories sited in Louisiana bayou country. Katherine O'Flaherty (1850-1904) actually was born and died in St. Louis, but she lived in the New Orleans area for the ten or so years she was married to a Louisiana Creole (ending with his death in 1882). Her first book, the novel AT FAULT (St. Louis 1890), went largely unnoticed; her fourth and last book, the novel THE AWAKENING (1899) was vilified at the time for its subject matter, but has since come to be regarded as a major feminist work. (A third collection of stories was cancelled by her publisher, perhaps in response to the public outcry over THE AWAKENING, and was not published until 1991, as A VOCATION AND A VOICE.) Included in this volume is the famous tale "Athénaïse" -- "a short story about a willful young woman who runs away from her husband’s Louisiana plantation and lives secretly in New Orleans" [KC Intl Soc] -- a topic Chopin would expand upon with THE AWAKENING. This volume is a typically-artistic Way & Williams production, with on both covers the same brooding bayou scene (the green design is intentionally barely visible against the dark blue background -- only the silver moon and its silver reflection in the water stand out). This copy's condition is very good (very minor wear at the corners); the silver pigment is slightly rubbed on the spine, but less than is typical. Blanck 3245; Kraus (W&W) 52.