Louisiana Sojourns: Travelers’ Tales and Literary Journeys

A sweeping collection of observations and episodes penned by visitors to Louisiana from the sixteenth century to the 1990s, Louisiana Sojourns is -- much like the state itself -- a wonder to behold in its sum, and in its particulars, full of surprise and delight. The seventy-six pieces that Frank de Caro has selected give readers a vivid sense of how Louisiana's unique blend of Old World, South, the exotic, and quintessential America has exerted a pull and hold on travelers. Included are writings by well-known figures such as Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt, Kate Chopin, John Steinbeck, Frederick Law Olmsted, Walker Percy, William Faulkner, Simone de Beauvoir, Henry Miller, John James Audubon, Calvin Trillin, Zora Neale Hurston, A. J. Liebling, William Least Heat Moon, and Frederick Turner. Dozens of other wayfarers are represented as well.

Frank de Caro is a professor emeritus of English at Louisiana State University, where he taught for thirty-four years. A former president of the Louisiana Folklore Society and the first chairman of the Louisiana Folklife Commission, he is the author or editor of several books, including Re-Situating Folklore: Folk Contexts and Twentieth-Century Literature and Art, coauthored by Rosan Augusta Jordan. Jordan is a retired professor of English at Louisiana State University. She and de Caro live in New Orleans.