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Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosity's, A Production of IHeart Radio and Grim and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

Midnight release parties, book-themed Halloween costumes, author-tour events.

People have always found ways to pay homage to their favorite works of fiction.

Sometimes they even travel hundreds, or even thousands of miles, to see the place that inspired their favorite works, or, in the case of one 18th century protagonist, her untimely death.

In the late 1800s, a family of mourners gathered around a headstone at Trinity Church

graveyard in New York City. A mother wept as her teenage daughter

laid a small bundle of flowers on the long gray stone slab that marked the grave. The stone was

already decorated with other small bouquets and cards, gifts from other mourners. The family

commented on how nice it was that so many people had come to pay their respects.

In fact, this was the most visited grave at Trinity Church.

Well-wishers from all over the country came to visit the burial plot.

Not because the person lying beneath the stone slab was a political hero or an industrial

pioneer.

No, she was the protagonist of a novel called Charlotte

A Tale of Truth. The book was written by Susanna Rousen and published in 1791. It was a bit

melodramatic, but a tear-jurker all the same. It followed 16-year-old Charlotte Temple, who was

seduced by a villainous playboy named Lord Montraville.

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