George Washington Cable compared in his lifetime to Dickens and Daudet and praised in Moscow as a disciple of Turgenev was more than a local colorist of Creole days in New Orleans. He was a crusader as well -- and a crusader for a dangerously unpopular cause.<P>Originally published in 1956 by Duke University Press this biography won the Charles S. Sydnor Award given by the Southern Historical Association for the best book in Southern History over a two-year period. The author is chairman of the Department of English at Duke University.