The Pride and the Sorrow
The Pride and the Sorrow is about a
famous
New Orleans
chess player, Paul
Morphy, and his passionate but destructive love for a
prostitute, Clara. A story of
Creole family, fame and love, the novel
depicts the high life and the underbelly of
New Orleans, London
and Paris.
Background
Above is Paul Morphy's house, 89 Royal Street, with
its port-hole windows.
Today it is 417 Royal Street between St. Louis and
Conti Streets. Born at 1113 Chartres Street, Paul soon
moves to Royal Street, where he grows up under the
chess tutelage of his father Alonzo and uncle Ernest,
after they discover his talent. Paul's exceptional
ability alters the
Morphy family, as he is projected towards
the possibility of foreign fame and takes on the
chess players of Europe, the best in the
world.
 New
Orleans is divided by race, gender and
social position, power shared unequally between
politician and public, black and white, Creole and
American, men and women. The
Morphys cross from the upper to the lower
class. They attend the opera and play chess on Sundays
against
visiting champions of the royal game. So
too they trade in slaves with pirates, duel, drink and
wandering into the red light district. So long as
secrets remain, all will be well. Paul's infatuation
with la belle Clara Young opens
the possibility of social transgression.
But
for how long? Paul must
take a respectable career, and Clara must consider her
future. Dark clouds gather over the forgotten
Crescent City, and the country itself.
Mardi Gras must end one day, as every game has an end.
Yet uniting divided people holds more fantastical
promise, it seems, in
New Orleans than anywhere else...
Above is a Creole corner house with
wrought iron balconies. These buildings look the
same today as they did during Paul Morphy's life
and when this photograph was taken at the turn of
the twentieth century.
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The Brothels of Basin Street   Paul Morphy is today remembered as "the pride and the sorrow" of chess, a short-lived genius. Clarabelle and her fellow tricksters of Basin Street , New Orleans, have been forgotten by history. These image shows the townhouse brothels of New Orleans, and Basin Street as it is today. The Boy Genius  
The Pride and the Sorrow is the story of the famous New Orleans chess player, Paul Morphy, and his impassioned and destructive love for a prostitute, Clarabelle.
The Brothels of Basin Street
Paul Morphy is today remembered as "the pride
and the sorrow" of chess, a short-lived genius.
Clarabelle and her fellow tricksters of Basin
Street,
New Orleans, have been
forgotten by history. These image shows the
townhouse brothels of
New Orleans, and Basin
Street as it is today.
The Big Easy
 The
Pride and the Sorrow
takes place at a time when prostitution in the
Big Easy was legally
sanctioned, before child prodigies and mental
illness were better understood. In the
mid-nineteenth century
chess matches were
fought as duels, with seconds, monetary stakes
and gambling, and true genius was lauded but not
without jealous undercurrents. Mismatched love
could be fatal.
Before modern chess competition but not before
Mardi Gras, operatic funerals, destructive
hurricanes, Creole slavery, Civil War Union
soldiers lining Bourbon Street, or real
passage d'armes fought for love and honor…a
chess player caught the national interest, a
gentleman with a calm passion for the royal game
but a troubled obsession for an unsuitable
woman.
Passion and Destruction
 Who
is Paul Morphy?
Paul Morphy is a real person, a child prodigy
born into a wealthy
Creole family in the
French Quarter in 1837. He grows up to become
the unofficial chess world champion, 'breaking'
Europe while only twenty-one, and defeating all
challengers,
performing miraculous blindfold feats along the
way. No one dares play him.
After astounding Paris and London, he returns to
New Orleans, lionized,
but misunderstood. Rooted in Paul is an
irrational obsession for the red-light district
crib-girl, Clara. Paul abandons chess
and grows reclusive in his love. A strict
amateur on the board, off the board he develops
a misconceived love for a professional working
girl who cannot understand his world, or he
hers.
Young and Immortal
 This
is a bronze bust of the famous
New Orleans chess
player Paul Morphy, created in Paris by Eugene
Lequesne, 1858.
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