Doctor to the Dead: Grotesque Legends and Folk Tales of Old Charleston

a fascinating story about a leading Charleston physician who falls in love with the ghost of a woman long since dead and buried. He becomes so obsessed with the condition of the dead that he ostracizes the conventional medical community and devotes the rest of his life to their care

Being from the Mt. Pleasant/Charleston area myself, I can vouch that this as a great collection of Black Charleston folklore. I know some of the areas that are spoken of in this tales. Essentially, Bennett, a sympathetic white Ohioan, collected these tales from African-Americans in Charleston in the early 1900s, but since this was the dark days of segregation and he chose not to patronize the tellers of these tales and treated them with dignity, he and these stories were scorned by White Charleston's establishment until he published this book in 1943. Even without this basic history, these are wonderfully entertaining stories of ghosts, lost loves, and divine revenge that will be a hit at your next halloween party or your (older) children at bedtime. Read, learn, and enjoy.

Like Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Grady? Don't miss this much under-appreciated masterpiece by the man who started the Charleston Renaissance. Stories culled from the oral tradition of the Low Country's important Gullah culture, this book is an exhilarating alternative to the infinitely heavy and guilt-ridden tomes of Toni Morrison (Bennett was also from Ohio) for any serious student of Afro-American and Southern history. It includes original sketches of landscapes and portraits of black corroborators which firmly ground the stories in local history and folk culture. But this is not just a book for regionalists! One can't help but be impressed with Bennett's phenomenal interest, dedication, and erudition even if he was a bit self absorbed. The new edition, published by the University of South Carolina, is introduced with a lucid piece by Professor and Librarian Thomas L. Johnson.