A wax figurine forgotten in museum storage. A book of poems that prophesied a ghost. A woman on a beach who found something she wasn't looking for. In the final episode of the Charleston Gothic series, the investigation returns to where it began — the Dock Street Theatre — and follows the last of three trails through Charleston's tangled relationship with Edgar Allan Poe. Along the way, a century-old literary vision resurfaces, a forgotten poet speaks truths the city wasn't ready to hear, and the question that launched the series finally gets its answer.

 

Sources referenced in the episode:

Books

Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe by  Hervey Allen (1926)

Carolina Chansons: Legends of the Low Country  by DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen (1922)

The Arrow of Lightning by Beatrice Witte Ravenel (1926)

The Dreamer: A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe  by Mary Newton Stanard

Edgar Allan Poe's Charleston  by Christopher Byrd Downey

Poe's Brother: The Poems of William Henry Leonard Poe by Hervey Allen and Thomas Ollive Mabbott

Ghosts and Legends of Charleston by Denise Rolfe (2010)

Poe-Land by J.W. Ocker

Sheppard Lee, Written By Himself by Robert Montgomery Bird (1836)

Poems

"Edgar Allan Poe" by DuBose Heyward (from Carolina Chansons)

"Alchemy" by Hervey Allen (from Carolina Chansons)

"Poe's Mother" by Beatrice Witte Ravenel (from The Arrow of Lightning)

Articles

"A Source for 'Annabel Lee'" by Robert Adger Law (1922)

Plays

Nevermore by Julian Wiles (1994)

Scholarly Work

Thomas Ollive Mabbott's annotated edition of Poe's works (notes on "Annabel Lee")

Louis Rubin's new edition of Beatrice Witte Ravenel's poems (1969)

Historical Sources

Charleston Evening Post coverage of the 1923 Charleston Museum diorama unveiling

"The Mourner" an anonymous poem, Charleston Courier (1807)

People Referenced as Sources/Informants

Eric Lavender, Charleston tour guide

Christopher Byrd Downey, author and historian

Scott Peeples, Poe scholar (quoted via Ocker's Poe-Land)