Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Cable, George W.
CABLE, George W., novelist, was born in New Orleans, where he still resides, in 1845. At the age of fourteen his father died, leaving his family in such reduced circumstances as to compel his son to leave school in order to aid in the support of his mother and sisters. From this time until 1863 he was usually employed as a clerk. In that year he entered the Confederate army, where he remained until the close of the civil war. Returning to New Orleans, he made such a living as he could—at first as an errand boy (though he was twenty-one years of age), then in surveying, and finally secured a position in a prominent house of cotton factors, which he only left, in 1879, to devote himself exclusively to literature. His first literary work was in the form of contributions to the New Orleans Picayune over the signature of Drop-Shot. His work, however, did not attract any very general attention until his Creole sketches appeared in Scribner's Magazine. These were published in book form in 1879, under the title of "Old Creole Days." They were followed by "The Grandissimes" in 1880, and by "Madame Delphine" in 1881. In all of these Mr. Cable has shown such a mastery of the Louisiana dialect and such a deep insight into the Creole character as to give him at once a prominence among American writers which few are fortunate enough to obtain in so brief an experience. He is now engaged upon the preparation of a history of New Orleans.