Charleston Gothic: Part 6- Ghostly Alchemy
Pleasing Terrors
Mike Brown
4.9 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Some stories were never supposed to be told. |
| 0:11.0 | Stories that exist in the twilight, |
| 0:15.0 | between science and the supernatural, |
| 0:18.0 | between history and horror. |
| 0:21.6 | Stories that speak of terrifying things. |
| 0:25.6 | Stories that you want to hear. |
| 0:28.6 | Stories that you need to hear. |
| 0:31.6 | Stories that will sink their teeth in and never let you go. |
| 0:36.6 | My name is Mike Brown, and this is Pleasing Terror's. |
| 0:48.6 | Pleasing Terror's Podcast, Episode 52, Charleston Gothic Part 6, Ghostly Alchemy. |
| 1:01.2 | The Charleston Museum stands on Meeting Street, a modern building of brick and glass that |
| 1:07.5 | replaced its 19th century predecessor in 1980, founded by the Charleston Library |
| 1:14.1 | Society in 1773, just three years before the American Revolution. |
| 1:21.0 | It holds the distinction of being America's first museum. |
| 1:25.8 | For two and a half centuries, this institution has been collecting, |
| 1:30.3 | preserving, and occasionally forgetting the artifacts of low country history. |
| 1:37.3 | The entrance gives on to a bright atrium where a suspended whale skeleton dominates the space, its massive bones hanging above visitors' heads. |
| 1:47.0 | The museum galleries offer examples of monumental antiquities and natural history, |
| 1:53.0 | as well as glimpses of intimate human stories from the city's past. |
| 1:58.0 | Stone guardians and fossils sharing space with dresses, tools, paintings, |
| 2:04.2 | and fragments of everyday life. Glass cases line quiet corridors, filled with bones and baskets, |
| 2:12.4 | uniforms and shells, maps and portraits. The lighting is subdued, the floors polished, the pace unhurried. |
... |
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