Social Life in Old New Orleans

If you feel nostalgic about the days of gorgeous hoop skirts, handsome Southern gentlemen, and exquisite dinners, then you'll love this memoir in which Eliza Ripley takes readers back to antebellum days in New Orleans. Realizing that the times recorded here had drifted away forever, the author purposed to make a record for her progeny of the way things used to be.Alas, the New Orleans described here exists only on the printed page and in second-hand stories--those who experienced it firsthand are no longer with us. In their absence, Mrs. Ripley describes everything from boarding schools to old wedding traditions. Such genteel mainstays as the old French Opera house, steamboats, and the lovely, nameless hotel at the gulfside town of Pass Christian, Mississippi, are fondly recalled and vividly described.New Orleans still retains much of the warm, easy-living feel that was so cherished in antebellum days. So, even today, you will easily appreciate the voyage back to a somehow-familiar time of grandeur and elegance.