Includes ghost stories from the Aiken-Rhett House, the Garden Theater, and the Cooper River Bridge.

Leave embellishment by the wayside and let these ghastly and sometimes dreadful stories of the historic streets of Charleston tell themselves! Combing through the oft-forgotten enclaves of the Holy City, where true life is stranger than fiction, authors Ed Macy and Geordie Buxton bring readers face to face with a group of orphans who haunt a College of Charleston dorm, a Citadel cadet who haunts a local hotel and the specter of William Drayton at Drayton Hall Plantation - just to name a few. Based on historic events and specific details that are often lost in most ghost stories, this collection of haunting tales sparks curiosity about what figure might still be lurking in the alleyways of Charleston's storied streets.

Charleston, South Carolina, famous for its magnolia and azalea gardens, its Battery, its plantations, and its key role in early American history has certainly had its share of ghosts. They stalk the halls of townhouses once famous for gracious living and romance; they inhabit lonely stretches of moss-draped roads; and they roam the deserted garden paths of the old plantations outside the city. Charleston Ghosts brings to life an intriguing group of personalities who act out their fateful roles in true-to-legend style. “Eighteen delightful ghost tales about Charleston and the Lowcountry told as only a native Charlestonian could tell them.”—Charleston News and Courier

Stroll down Charleston's cobblestone streets and explore mysterious echoes from the past. Prepare to meet the legendary ghost of infamous pirate Stede Bonnet, who once sailed with Blackbeard. Be greeted at the Provost Dungeon by the spirit of American martyr Isaac Hayne, who was hanged for treason in 1781. Read about an extraordinary beauty, Lavinia Fisher, a serial killer who roams the streets in her wedding gown. Catch a glimpse of the small apparitions of children playing in the Holy City's cemeteries. Encounter the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe on the beaches of Sullivan's Island. Enjoy these and other accounts of spine-tingling paranormal events showcasing a link between the past and modern-day ghostly experiences.

A shackled West African tribe drags themselves off a slave ship while singing, drowning in a Georgia creek to avoid being sold. Mysterious letters from a long-ruined church near Mepkin Abbey solicit a man to join faith. A French teacher disappears from a school after marking final exams in blood. An Egyptian mummy triggers a heart attack in a city museum. These stories and more are wrenched from the gravest parts of America's past--real lives of people on plantations from Savannah and the coast of the Carolinas. Most deal with the hub of the East Coast slave trade, Charleston, South Carolina. All are richly illustrated with both historic and contemporary images. Dwelling in the affairs of plantation life is to tread the fires of emotionally raw history. Sifting through the folklore and legends, the old hushed embers of the south ignite once again in this collection. While these stories relate encounters with the supernatural, readers will find that what actually happened here doesn't always need a ghost to be disquieting.

A collection of fantastical and macabre Gullah-inspired folklore that illuminates African-American life in nineteenth-century South Carolina. You ask for a story. I will tell you one, fact for fact and true for true. . . . So begins “Crook-Neck Dick,” one of twenty-three stories in this beguiling collection of Charleston lore. John Bennett’s interpretations of the legends shared with him by African-descended Charlestonians have entertained generations. Among them are tales of ghosts, conjuring, superhuman feats, and supernatural powers; accounts of ingenuity, humor, terror, mystery, and solidarity will enchant folklorists, students of Charleston history, and all those who love a good ghost story. Julia Eichelberger, the Marybelle Higgins Howe Professor of Southern Literature and an executive board member of the Center for Study of Slavery at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, provides an introduction. “A collection of folk story, myth, drolleries, macabre unreason . . . old tales of death, mystery, bizarre incredibilities, diabolic influence, demanding ghosts, buried treasure, enchantments, miracles, visitations, and the dead that are not dead.” —Kirkus Reviews

Berkeley County, just like its sister county of Charleston, is steeped in history and rich in legend and lore. With Native American beginnings and later infused with colonial and Gullah cultures, Berkeley has seen many people come to reside. And with each of these diverse cultures came the eerie tales of ghosts, ghouls and goblins. Now, for the first time, Berkeley County ghost stories have been collected in a single volume bound to frighten and chill even the bravest of readers. Join local author and investigator Bruce Orr as he recounts the spine-tingling stories behind these apparitions, including the spirits of early colonists that still linger in the pines, the feared Cymbee water spirits of the Gullah culture and the dreaded Cherokee witch Spear Finger, who craves the livers of unsuspecting victims.