George Washington Cable was an American novelist most known for his realistic depictions of Creole life in his hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana. He has been described as "the most important southern artist working in the late nineteenth century" and "the first modern Southern writer." His writing on racism, mixed-race families, and miscegenation has been compared to William Faulkner's. He also authored critical pieces on contemporary society. Cable went to Northampton, Massachusetts, with his family in response to hatred directed at him following two 1885 essays advocating for racial equality and opposing Jim Crow. He resided there for the next thirty years until moving to Florida. Cable's experiences shifted his perspective on Southern and Louisianan society, and he began writing during a two-year illness with malaria. In 1870, he began working as a journalist for the New Orleans Picayune. From 1865 to 1879, he worked for the newspaper and had already established himself as a writer. George Cable married Louisa Stewart Bartlett in 1869, and together they produced several children. Cable was invited to submit stories to Scribner's Monthly, which published his story "Sieur George" in 1873, to critical and popular acclaim. Over the next three years, he published six more Creole-themed stories with Scribner's. In 1879, these were compiled and published in a book titled Old Creole Days.
