Madame Lalaurie, Mistress of the Haunted House

Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, Biography & Memoir
Cover of the book Madame Lalaurie, Mistress of the Haunted House by Carolyn Morrow Long, University Press of Florida
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Author: Carolyn Morrow Long ISBN: 9780813042879
Publisher: University Press of Florida Publication: March 4, 2012
Imprint: University Press of Florida Language: English
Author: Carolyn Morrow Long
ISBN: 9780813042879
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Publication: March 4, 2012
Imprint: University Press of Florida
Language: English

The legend of Madame Delphine Lalaurie, a wealthy society matron, has haunted the city of New Orleans for nearly two hundred years.

When fire destroyed part of her home in 1834, the public was outraged to learn that behind closed doors Lalaurie routinely bound, starved, and tortured her slaves. Forced to flee the city, her guilt was unquestioned, and tales of her actions have become increasingly fanciful and grotesque over the decades. Even today, the Laulaurie house is described as the city 's "most haunted" during ghost tours.

Carolyn Long, a meticulous researcher of New Orleans history, disentangles the threads of fact and legend that have intertwined over the decades. Was Madame Lalaurie a sadistic abuser? Mentally ill? Or merely the victim of an unfair and sensationalist press? Using carefully documented eyewitness testimony, archival documents, and family letters, Long recounts Lalaurie's life from legal troubles before the fire and scandal through her exile to France and death in Paris in 1849.

Themes of mental illness, wealth, power, and questions of morality in a society that condoned the purchase and ownership of other human beings pervade the book, lending it an appeal to anyone interested in antebellum history. Long's ability to tease the truth from the knots of sensationalism is uncanny as she draws the facts from the legend of Madame Lalaurie's haunted house.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The legend of Madame Delphine Lalaurie, a wealthy society matron, has haunted the city of New Orleans for nearly two hundred years.

When fire destroyed part of her home in 1834, the public was outraged to learn that behind closed doors Lalaurie routinely bound, starved, and tortured her slaves. Forced to flee the city, her guilt was unquestioned, and tales of her actions have become increasingly fanciful and grotesque over the decades. Even today, the Laulaurie house is described as the city 's "most haunted" during ghost tours.

Carolyn Long, a meticulous researcher of New Orleans history, disentangles the threads of fact and legend that have intertwined over the decades. Was Madame Lalaurie a sadistic abuser? Mentally ill? Or merely the victim of an unfair and sensationalist press? Using carefully documented eyewitness testimony, archival documents, and family letters, Long recounts Lalaurie's life from legal troubles before the fire and scandal through her exile to France and death in Paris in 1849.

Themes of mental illness, wealth, power, and questions of morality in a society that condoned the purchase and ownership of other human beings pervade the book, lending it an appeal to anyone interested in antebellum history. Long's ability to tease the truth from the knots of sensationalism is uncanny as she draws the facts from the legend of Madame Lalaurie's haunted house.

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