Mad Madame LaLaurie: New Orleans' Most Famous Murderess Revealed (True Crime) (2011)

by Victoria Cosner Love, Lorelai Shannon

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The truth behind the legend of New Orleans's infamous slave owner, madwoman, and murderess, portrayed in the anthology series, American Horror Story. On April 10, 1834, firefighters smashed through a padlocked attic door in the burning Royal Street mansion of Creole society couple Delphine and Louis Lalaurie. In the billowing smoke and flames they made an appalling discovery: the remains of Madame Lalaurie's chained, starved, and mutilated slaves. This house of horrors in the French Quarter spawned a legend that has endured for more than one-hundred-and-fifty years. But what actually happened in the Lalaurie home? Rumors about her atrocities spread as fast as the fire. But verifiable facts were scarce. Lalaurie wouldn't answer questions. She disappeared, leaving behind one of the French Quarter's ghastliest crime scenes, and what is considered to be one of America's most haunted houses.… (more)

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A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau by Carolyn Morrow Long (asukamaxwell)
asukamaxwell: A well-researched biography of another New Orleans legend, who also happens to be a contemporary of Madame Lalaurie. She is discussed as perhaps having a professional relationship with Mad Madame Lalaurie and supplying her with the Harlequin baby.
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Madame Lalaurie, Mistress of the Haunted House by Carolyn Morrow Long (asukamaxwell)
asukamaxwell: The same author who wrote "A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau." This well-researched biography contains a lot more detail of the life of Madame Lalaurie as well as members of her family.
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Strange True Stories of Louisiana by George Washington Cable (Anonymous user)
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New Orleans As It Was by Henry C. Castellanos (Anonymous user)
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Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans by Jeanne DeLavigne (Anonymous user)

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Victoria Cosner Love	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Shannon, Lorelai	—	main author	all editions	confirmed

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Canonical title

Original title

Mad Madame Lalaurie: New Orleans' Most Famous Murderess Revealed

Alternative titles

Original publication date

2011

People/Characters

Important places

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Paris, France

Important events

American Civil War

Louisiana Slave Rebellion (1811)

Haitian Revolution

Epigraph

Dedication

First words

No visit to New Orleans is complete without a ghost tour.

Quotations

All of the slaves had been outrageously mutilated, abused or starved. One woman had her skin peeled in a spiral around and around her body, so she resembled a macabre caterpillar. One man and one woman appeared to have had a crude sex change operation performed on them. Her breasts were sloppily sewn onto his chest and his penis sewn into her crotch. Another man chained to the wall had a hole drilled into his head. Maggots crawled in and our of the open wound. A woman had all of her bones broken and reset at different angles, so that she resembled a nightmarish crab. When the doors burst open, she scuttled to a corner to hide, shrieking out a hideous, high-pitched barking sound. Buckets of body parts littered the room.

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Wikipedia in English (2)

Delphine LaLaurie

The St. Francisville Experiment

▾Book descriptions

The truth behind the legend of New Orleans's infamous slave owner, madwoman, and murderess, portrayed in the anthology series, American Horror Story. On April 10, 1834, firefighters smashed through a padlocked attic door in the burning Royal Street mansion of Creole society couple Delphine and Louis Lalaurie. In the billowing smoke and flames they made an appalling discovery: the remains of Madame Lalaurie's chained, starved, and mutilated slaves. This house of horrors in the French Quarter spawned a legend that has endured for more than one-hundred-and-fifty years. But what actually happened in the Lalaurie home? Rumors about her atrocities spread as fast as the fire. But verifiable facts were scarce. Lalaurie wouldn't answer questions. She disappeared, leaving behind one of the French Quarter's ghastliest crime scenes, and what is considered to be one of America's most haunted houses.

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