{"product_id":"9780801877698","title":"The Mysteries of New Orleans","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Reizenstein's peculiar vision of New Orleans is worth resurrecting precisely because it crossed the boundaries of acceptable taste in nineteenth-century German America and squatted firmly on the other side... This work makes us realize how limited our notions were of what could be conceived by a fertile American imagination in the middle of the nineteenth century.\"?from the Introduction by Steven Rowan\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA lost classic of America's neglected German-language literary tradition,  \u003ci\u003eThe Mysteries of New Orleans\u003c\/i\u003e by Baron Ludwig von Reizenstein first appeared as a serial in the  \u003ci\u003eLouisiana Staats-Zeitung\u003c\/i\u003e, a New Orleans German-language newspaper, between 1854 and 1855. Inspired by the gothic \"urban mysteries\" serialized in France and Germany during this period, Reizenstein crafted a daring occult novel that stages a frontal assault on the ethos of the antebellum South. His plot imagines the coming of a bloody, retributive justice at the hands of Hiram the Freemason?a nightmarish, 200-year-old, proto-Nietzschean superman?for the sin of slavery. Heralded by the birth of a black messiah, the son of a mulatto prostitute and a decadent German aristocrat, this coming revolution is depicted in frankly apocalyptic terms.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet, Reizenstein was equally concerned with setting and characters, from the mundane to the fantastic. The book is saturated with the atmosphere of nineteenth-century New Orleans, the amorous exploits of its main characters uncannily resembling those of New Orleans' leading citizens. Also of note is the author's progressively matter-of-fact portrait of the lesbian romance between his novel's only sympathetic characters, Claudine and Orleana. This edition marks the first time that  \u003ci\u003eThe Mysteries of New Orleans\u003c\/i\u003e has been translated into English and proves that 150 years later, this vast, strange, and important novel remains as compelling as ever.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Johns Hopkins University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47078314901744,"sku":"9780801877698","price":43.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780801877698_p0.jpg?v=1769906233","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780801877698","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}