Lafacadio Hearn left Cincinnati for New Orleans in 1877, where he remained for almost a decade. Whilst there he penned Gombo Zhebes, which is a collection of 352 Creole proverbs selected from 6 different dialects. Included are selections from the Creole of French Guyana, the Creole of Haiti, the Creole of New Orleans, the Creole of Martinique, the Creole of Mauritius, and the Creole of Trinidad. The proverbs are translated into French and into English. This early work by Hearn was first published in 1885 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography.

Excerpt from Gombo Zhebes: Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs, Selected From Six Creole DialectsNevertheless all which I have utilized exhibit the peculiarities of the vernacular sufficiently to justify their presence.While some of these proverbs are witty enough to call a smile to the most serious lips, many others must, no doubt, seem vapid. Enigmatic, or even meaningless. But a large majority of negro sayings depend altogether upon application for their color or their effectiveness; they possess a chameleon power of changing hue according to the manner in which they are placed. (see for examples: Prov. 161, 251, or Every saying of this kind is susceptible of numerous applications; and the art of applying one proverb to many different situations is one in which the negro has no rival - not even among the Arabs them selves, whose use of such folklore has been so admirably illustrated by Carlo Landberg.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

With A Brief Account Of General Sully's Indian Expedition In 1864, Bearing Upon Events Occurring In My Captivity.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ "Gombo ZhEbes." Little Dictionary Of Creole Proverbs, Selected From Six Creole Dialects. Tr. Into French And Into English, With Notes, Complete Index To Subjects And Some Brief Remarks Upon The Creole Idioms Of Lousiana Lafcadio Hearn W. H. Coleman, 1885 Foreign Language Study; Creole Languages; Creole dialects; Foreign Language Study / Creole Languages; Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics; Proverbs, Creole

Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) prowled the streets of New Orleans from 1877 to 1888 before moving on to a new life and global fame as a chronicler of Japan. Hearn's influence on our perceptions of New Orleans, however, has unjustly remained unknown. In ten years of serving as a correspondent and selling his writing in such periodicals as the New Orleans Daily Item, Times-Democrat, Harper's Weekly, and Scribner's Magazine he crystallized the way Americans view New Orleans and its south Louisiana environs. Hearn was prolific, producing colorful and vivid sketches, vignettes, news articles, essays, translations of French and Spanish literature, book reviews, short stories, and woodblock prints. He haunted the French Quarter to cover such events as the death of Marie Laveau. His descriptions of the seamy side of New Orleans, tainted with voodoo, debauchery, and mystery made a lasting impression on the nation. Denizens of the Crescent City and devotees who flock there for escapades and pleasures will recognize these original tales of corruption, of decay and benign frivolity, and of endless partying. With his writing, Hearn virtually invented the national image of New Orleans as a kind of alternative reality to the United States as a whole. S. Frederick Starr, a leading authority on New Orleans and Louisiana culture, edits the volume, adding an introduction that places Hearn in a social, historical, and literary context. Hearn was sensitive to the unique cultural milieu of New Orleans and Louisiana. During the decade that he spent in New Orleans, Hearn collected songs for the well-known New York music critic Henry Edward Krehbiel and extensively studied Creole French, making valuable and lasting contributions to ethnomusicology and linguistics. Hearn's writings on Japan are famous and have long been available. But Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn brings together a selection of Hearn's nonfiction on New Orleans and Louisiana, creating a previously unavailable sampling. In these pieces Hearn, an Anglo-Greek immigrant who came to America by way of Ireland, is alternately playful, lyrical, and morbid. This gathering also features ten newly discovered sketches. Using his broad stylistic palette, Hearn conjures up a lost New Orleans which later writers such as William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams used to evoke the city as both reality and symbol.