Episode 51: The Unfortunate Pirate
For over a century, "Annabel Lee" has been read as Edgar Allan Poe's final love poem—a haunting elegy to his child bride Virginia, written months before his death. But what if we've been wrong about the poem's true subject all along?
In this episode, Mike follows a trail of evidence from a forgotten 1827 tale about a murderous pirate to the windswept shores of Sullivan's Island, where Poe was stationed as a young soldier. Along the way, he uncovers a family accusation that pursued Poe his entire life, a poem he was forced to burn, and the testimony of a woman who nursed him through his darkest hours.
What emerges is a radical reinterpretation of America's most famous poem of loss—and a story about what it means to defend someone you love when the whole world has turned against them.
The grave of Annabel Lee has finally been found. It was never where anyone thought to look.
Sources Referenced in Episode 51: The Unfortunate Pirate
Primary Sources & Archival Materials
Ellis & Allan Papers, Library of Congress (John Allan's 1824 letter to William Henry Leonard Poe)
Charleston Courier, December 4, 1807 ("The Mourner" by D.M.C.; theatrical advertisements for Placide's company)
Charleston News and Courier, September 15, 1912 (account of the Pirate's House legend)
The North American (Baltimore periodical containing "The Pirate" by W.H.P., published November 27, 1827)
Flag of Our Union (Boston, 1849 — publication of "To My Mother")
New York Tribune (publication of "Annabel Lee," October 1849)
Broadway Journal, 1845 (Poe's defense of his mother's profession)
John Henry Ingram correspondence with Marie Louise Shew (1875–1877)
Works by Edgar Allan Poe
"Annabel Lee" (1849)
"To My Mother" (1849)
"Song" (from Tamerlane and Other Poems, 1827)
"To M. L. S." (1847)
"To Marie Louise" (1848)
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
Secondary Sources & Biographies
Hervey Allen — Poe biographer (collaborated with Thomas Ollive Mabbott)
Thomas Ollive Mabbott — Poe scholar (1927 discovery of W.H.P. works in The North American)
Robert Adger Law, "A Source for 'Annabel Lee'" (April 1922) — article tracing the poem to the Charleston Courier
John Henry Ingram — early Poe biographer
J.W. Ocker, Poe-Land: The Hallowed Haunts of Edgar Allan Poe
Scott Peeples — Poe scholar (quoted in Poe-Land)
Contemporary Accounts & Memoirs
John Sartain — account of Poe's 1849 Philadelphia breakdown
N.P. Willis — description of Maria Clemm as "Edgar's sole ministering angel"
Marie Louise Shew — correspondence and forty pages of notes from Fordham
Mary Starr — recollections of the Poe household in Baltimore
Samuel Mordecai — letter describing fashionable visitors to Elizabeth Poe's deathbed
Colonel James House — March 30, 1829 letter requesting Poe's discharge
Historical & Architectural References
Robert Mills — architect of the Fireproof Building (Charleston, 1827) and Monumental Church (Richmond, 1814)
Richmond Theatre Fire accounts (December 26, 1811)
Previous Episodes Referenced
"Night Sea Voyage" (Dock Street Theatre, Julian Wiles's Nevermore!)
"Buried Treasures" (Charleston's Gold-Bug mythology, Alexander Lenard)
"Juliet's Tomb" (Alexander Lenard's biography, the A.L.R. tombstone)
"Tekeli" (Robert Adger Law's discovery, Eliza Poe's Charleston performances, Tekeli connection)
CHARLESTON GOTHIC Episode 4: Tekeli
The Charleston Library Society has survived fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, and war—emerging each time with its treasures intact. Among those treasures: the world's most complete archive of Charleston newspapers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
In this episode, we enter the stacks where a ghost named Hinson is said to wander, where Henry Timrod's blood-stained manuscript bears witness to a poet's final days, and where a century-old scholarly article waited decades for someone to understand what it revealed.
What was Edgar Allan Poe really searching for when he visited Charleston's archives during his time at Fort Moultrie? For over a hundred years, the legend said he came looking for pirate treasure—the buried gold that would inspire "The Gold-Bug." But a 1922 discovery by a Texas scholar suggested something far more personal.
Following threads that connect the Poetry Society of South Carolina, a Harvard-trained philologist, and the vanished stage of the Charleston Theatre, we trace Poe's footsteps to a secret hidden in plain sight—one that may unlock the strangest passage he ever wrote.
The answer lies where it has always been: in the newspapers, in the archives, in the advertisements for a play called Tekeli.
Sources:
Books
- Allen, Hervey. Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe (1926)
- Allen, Hervey and DuBose Heyward. Carolina Chansons (1922)
- Allen, Hervey and Thomas Ollive Mabbott. Poe's Brother: The Life and Poetry of William Henry Leonard Poe (1926)
- Downey, Christopher Byrd. Edgar Allan Poe's Charleston (2020)
- Kopley, Richard. Edgar Allan Poe: A Life (2025)
- Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed. Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 1: Poems (Harvard University Press, 1969)
- Poe, Edgar Allan. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838)
- Ravenel, Beatrice Witte. The Arrow of Lightning (1926)
Academic Articles
- Law, Robert Adger. "A Source for 'Annabel Lee'" Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Volume 21 (April 1922)
- Peeples, Scott and Michelle Van Parys. "Unburied Treasure: Edgar Allan Poe in the South Carolina Lowcountry." Southern Cultures (2016)
Newspapers & Periodicals
- Charleston Courier (December 4, 1807)
- Charleston Courier (March 22, 1811)
- Charleston Mercury (2011)
- News and Courier (February 6, 1889)
- News and Courier (1938)
- Southern Patriot (July 25, 1833)
- Russell's Magazine
- Southern Literary Messenger
- Texas Review / Southwest Review
Archival & Primary Sources
- Charleston Library Society archives
- Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Volume 21 — inscribed "Gift of author, Oct. 1934"
- Surveyor's plat for Captain William C. Hammer (February 16, 1867)
- Affidavit dated September 5, 1745 (Cid Campeador treasure deposition)
Plays
- Hook, Theodore Edward (libretto) and James Hook (music). Tekeli; or, The Siege of Montgatz
Television
- "Time Enough at Last." The Twilight Zone (1959)
Reference Works
- South Carolina Encyclopedia (entry on Henry Timrod)
Interviews & Personal Communications
- Christopher Byrd Downey (conversation at Owlbear Café)
- Danielle Cox, Digital Historian, Charleston Library Society
- Scott Peeples, phone interview
Find the grave of Annabel Lee and you find the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe!
In this episode, a hand-drawn map pulls us through a locked iron gate into Charleston’s most overgrown churchyard, where legends gather like mist and names disappear into leaves. A lady in white wanders the paths. Sixty-four people have collapsed before this very gate.
We follow the trail of Annabel Lee—the girl Poe loved, or invented, or summoned—and uncover the stranger story beneath the legend: a visiting scholar who survived war and exile, stood before Juliet’s Tomb in Verona, and quietly planted a grave that may never have existed.
The map points toward a burial—but the real treasure may be hidden elsewhere. What if the grave was a lie but the lie was true?
Sources:
The Ghosts of Charleston by Julian Buxton
Edgar Allan Poe's Charleston by Christopher Byrd Downey
A History Lover’s Guide to Charleston by Christopher Byrd Downey
Unburied Treasure: Edgar Allan Poe in the South Carolina Lowcountry
Scott Peeples, Michelle Van Parys
Southern Cultures, Vol. 22, No. 2
Haunted Charleston by Sarah Pitzer
Nevermore! Edgar Allan Poe- The Final Mystery by Julian Wiles
Source for Alexander Lenard:
Primary Sources by Alexander Lenard
Die Kuh auf dem Bast (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1963)
The Valley of the Latin Bear (New York, 1965) - English translation
Am Ende der Via Condotti: Römische Jahre (München: DTV Verlag, 2017) - translated by Ernö Zeltner
Stories of Rome (Budapest: Corvina, 2013) - translated by Mark Baczoni
O Vale Do Fim Do Mundo (São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2013) - translated by Paulo Schiller
Die römische Küche (München, 1963)
Sieben Tage Babylonisch (Stuttgart, 1964)
A római konyha (1986)
Winnie Ille Pu (Latin translation of Winnie-the-Pooh)
Völgy a világ végén s más történetek (Budapest: Magvető, 1973)
Secondary Sources - Books and Academic Articles
Siklós, Péter. "Von Budapest bis zum Tal am Ende der Welt: Sándor Lénárds romanhafter Lebensweg" (online)
Siklós, Péter. "The Klára Szerb – Alexander Lenard Correspondence." The Hungarian Quarterly 189 (2008): 42-61
Sachs, Lynne. "Alexander Lenard: A Life in Letters." The Hungarian Quarterly 199 (Autumn 2010): 93-104
Lénárt-Cheng, Helga. "A Multilingual Monologue: Alexander Lenard's Self-Translated Autobiography in Three Languages." Hungarian Cultural Studies 7 (January 2015)
Vajdovics, Zsuzsanna. "Gli anni romani di Sándor Lénárd." Annuario: Studi e Documenti Italo-Ungheresi (Roma-Szeged, 2005)
Vajdovics, Zsuzsanna. "Alexander Lenard: Portrait d'un traducteur émigrant." Atelier de Traduction 9 (2008): 185-191
Rapcsányi, László & Szerb, Klára. "Who Was Alexander Lenard? An Interview with Klára Szerb." The Hungarian Quarterly 189 (2008): 26-30
Lenard, Alexander. "A Few Words About Winnie Ille Pu." The Hungarian Quarterly 199 (2010): 87-92
Humblé, Philippe & Sepp, Arvi. "'Die Kriege haben mein Leben bestimmt': Alexander Lenard's Narratives of Brazilian Exile." In Hermann Gätje / Sikander Singh (Eds.), Grenze als Erfahrung und Diskurs (Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 2018)
Badel, Keuly Dariana. "Writing oneself and the other: A biography of Alexander Lenard (1951-1972)." Proceedings of the XXVI National History Symposium – ANPUH (São Paulo, July 2011)
Nascimento, Gabriela Goulart. "Erich Erdstein and the hunt for Nazis: A study on the book 'The Rebirth of the Swastika in Brazil.'" Federal University of Santa Catarina (Florianópolis, 2021)
Mosimann, João Carlos. Catarinenses: Gênese E História (Florianópolis/SC, 2010)
Kroener, Sebastian (Ed.). Das Hospital auf dem Palmenhof (Norderstedt, 2016)
Ilg, Karl. Pioniere in Brasilien (Innsbruck/Wien/München, 1972)
Lützeler, Paul Michael. "Migration und Exil in Geschichte, Mythos, und Literatur." In Bettina Bannasch / Gerhild Rochus (Eds.), Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Exilliteratur (Berlin/Boston, 2013): 3-25
Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism (New York, 1993)
Said, Edward. Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures (New York, 1994)
Herz-Kestranek, Miguel; Kaiser, Konstantin & Strigl, Daniela (Eds.). In welcher Sprache träumen Sie? Österreichische Lyrik des Exils und des Widerstands (Wien, 2007)
Lomb, Kató. Harmony of Babel: Profiles of Famous Polyglots of Europe (Berkeley/Kyoto, 2013)
Hungarian Periodical Obituaries and Commemorations
Egri, Viktor. "A day in the invisible house." In Confession of Quiet Evenings (Bratislava: Madách, 1973): 162-166
Antalné Serb [Mrs. Antal Szerb]. "About Sándor Lénárd." Nagyvilág 1972/8: 1241-43
Kardos, György G. "Man at the end of the world: On the death of Sándor Lénárd." Élet és Irodalom (Life and Literature), May 6, 1972: 6
Bélley, Pál. "Tomb at the end of the world." Magyar Hírlap, April 29, 1972: 13
Kardos, Tibor. "Farewell to the doctor of the valley: The memory of Sándor Lénárd." Magyar Nemzet (Hungarian Nation), May 14, 1972: 12 (also in Az emberiség műhelyei, Budapest: Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, 1973)
Bodnár, Györgyi. Radio broadcast, Petőfi Rádió "Two to Six," June 21, 1972
Newspaper and Magazine Sources (Hungarian)
Magyar Napló, 2005 (17. évfolyam, 11. szám)
Kurír, 1990 (1. évfolyam, 124. szám)
Magyarország, 1969 (6. évfolyam, 9. szám)
Élet és Irodalom, 2010 (54. évfolyam, 11. szám)
Siklós, Péter. Budapesttől a világ végi völgyig – Lénárd Sándor regényes életútja
Berta, Gyula. "Egy magyar orvos, aki megtanította latinul Micimackót"
Other Sources
Lenard, Andrietta. "In Memory of Alexander." O Estado, May 11, 1980 (Florianópolis)
Rosenmann, Peter. "Lénárd Sándor." Web-lapozgató, November 30, 2004
Wittmann, Angelina. "Alexander Lenard – Sándor Lénárd – Chose Dona Emma SC" (blog, June 24, 2022)
Spiró, György & Kallen, Eve Maria. "No politics, no ideology, just human relations." Hungarian Lettre 92 (2014): 4-7
FCC – Fundação Catarinense de Cultura Cultural Heritage Inventory (2006)
AMAVI (Association of Municipalities of Alto Vale do Itajaí) Registry (2006)
FamilySearch genealogical records
Lenard Seminar Group website (mek.oszk.hu)
Scherman, David E. "Roman Holiday for a Bashful Bear Named Winnie" (article on Winnie Ille Pu)
Film
Sachs, Lynne. The Last Happy Day (experimental documentary film, 2009) - premiered at New York Film Festival
In this episode, we follow the Annabel Lee legend backward: from modern ghost tours to nineteenth-century poetry, from pirate treasure maps to academic footnotes, from Sullivan’s Island beaches to a forgotten corner of a graveyard. What emerges is not a simple ghost story, but an obsession—shared by scholars, storytellers, and an entire city convinced that something precious was buried in the South Carolina Lowcountry and must be found.
Edgar Allan Poe's Charleston by Christopher Byrd Downey
Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle By C.G. Jung
Unburied Treasure: Edgar Allan Poe in the South
Carolina Lowcountry
Scott Peeples, Michelle Van Parys
Southern Cultures, Vol. 22, No. 2
Haunting Poe: His Afterlife in Richmond and Beyond by Christopher P. Semtner
Nevermore! Edgar Allan Poe- The Final Mystery by Julian Wiles
The New York Evening Post
The Charleston News and Courier
The Sullivan's Island Edition of The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allan Poe, Frank Durham and Elizabeth Verner Hamilton
The Descent has led us to Charleston, and to a haunted historic theatre where we uncover a clue that may bring us closer to finding the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe.
Sources:
The Ghosts of Charleston by Julian Buxton
Charleston Ghosts: Hauntings in the Holy City by James Caskey
Complex, archetype and symbol in the psychology of C.G. Jung by Jolande Jacobi
The Mad Booths of Maryland By Preston Kimmel
The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe by Scott Peeples
Nevermore! Edgar Allan Poe- The Final Mystery by Julian Wiles
In this episode we visit the most haunted house of Edgar Allan Poe and then retrace his path to the threshold of a secret world.
Sources that were either referenced directly or consulted during the writing of this episode:
Ghosts of Philadelphia by Charles J. Adams III
A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak
The Final Days of Edgar Allan Poe: Nevermore in Baltimore by David F. Gatlin
True Tales of the Unknown: The Uninvited, published in 1989 and edited by Sharon Jones
The Ghostly Register by Arthur Meyers
The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City by Scott Peeples
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
Haunting Poe: His Afterlife in Richmond and Beyond by Christopher P. Semtner
The Poe Shrine: Building the World’s Finest Edgar Allan Poe Collection by Christopher P. Semtner
In this episode we continue our search for the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe and retrace his path through the final, ill-fated months of his life.
Sources that were either referenced directly or consulted during the writing of this episode:
Ghosts of Philadelphia by Charles J. Adams III
A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak
True Tales of the Unknown: The Uninvited, published in 1989 and edited by Sharon Jones
The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City by Scott Peeples
Haunting Poe: His Afterlife in Richmond and Beyond by Christopher P. Semtner
The Poe Shrine: Building the World’s Finest Edgar Allan Poe Collection by Christopher P. Semtner
In this episode we embark on a search for the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, guided by Henry David Thoreau and the mystery of the Hollow Earth. Our quest begins with a visit to a haunted saloon and an apartment building that is hiding a dark past.
The conclusion of the three part series which combines history, ghosts, true crime and fairytales.
The second episode in a three part series about one of Charleston's lost stories. It is a true story that combines history, true crime, ghosts and fairy tales.
This is the first in a three part series about one of Charleston, South Carolina's lost stories. It combines history, ghosts, true crime, amd fairytales.
This episode features the untold story of the origin of King Kong.
This episode tells a story about pirates and a haunted dungeon.
This episode tells the story of the Charleston mermaid.
This is a story about a German fairytale and a brutal murder in northwestern Georgia.
Suggested reading:
The Corpsewood Manor Murders In North Georgia by Amy Petulla
This a story about the Titanic, Victorian sex trafficking and a mummy's curse.
Haunted houses, midnight witchcraft and famous murder in historic Savannah, Georgia.
In this episode I visit some of Savanah's most haunted locations.
Suggested Reading:
Haunted Savanah: America's Most Spectral City by James Caskey
Haunted Savannah by Georgia R. Byrd
An unexpected return to a very creepy place to do a very foolish thing.
This episode features The Wizard of Oz, Greek mythology and a famous unsolved murder.
Episode 30: Resurrection delves into the history of Chicago's most famous ghost: Resurrection Mary!
I am with Alyson Horrocks of The Strange and Unusual Podcast. It’s the evening of August 20th, 2017. We are in Danvers, MA which was previously known as Salem Village. We are visiting the Samuel Parris archeological site. Surrounded by a rail fence there are two stone lined cellars marking the location of the house that once stood here. Next to this location is a grassy path that leads to the back of a house with a wolves head door knocker.
A wolf can be a monster of many faces and a bad omen. This is one of the hidden places of American history. A place where the horrors of yesterday have cast a long shadow. The bright memory of a day spent walking the sunny streets of Salem have suddenly grown dim. Even though the sun has not yet set, we are surrounded by darkness.
Resources:
The Strange and Unusual Podcast
A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials
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Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
Alyson Horrocks from the Strange and Unusual Podcast took me on a tour of a historical site with a dark past. The site sits in a town called Danvers, but it was once Salem Village. This site was the culmination of a strange mix of religion, superstition, folklore, slavery, patriarchy, truth, and lies.
A place where people’s imagination or secret motives ran wild and story or lie or desperate attempt at redemption led to the basis for one of the darkest times in colonial American History. What started as a search for freedom to pursue religion and all things good, and ended in a nondescript historical site and archaeological dig, has a sinister history with a story that is hard to tell and even harder to understand.
Resources:
The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege
The Strange and Unusual Podcast
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
The history of the Navajo goes back in time to the Four Corners region in Arizona. Where the spider grandmother spun a giant web and threw it into the night sky to create the stars. This area known as Canyon de Chelly is also known as the Canyon of the Dead after a misguided weaver’s warning resulted in a cruel cave massacre.
Like the art and designs of the Navajo weaver’s blanket, the Navajo legends are intertwined with a ranch purchased by a Utah couple. The Sherman ranch seemed like an idyllic place to raise premium cattle, but strange things started happening almost immediately upon the family's arrival. This ranch is now known as the Skinwalker Ranch and the legends continue.
Episode Highlights:
Resources:
Kit Carson’s Campaign Against the Indians
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!