In the first 200 years of New Orleans history, the Crescent City has earned a reputation for sin, temptation, intrigue, lawlessness, ritual-magic, and ghosts. Step back in time to the city's first few crime-stained centuriesfrom 17181918to explore classic tales of mischief, mayhem, and skullduggery. Arranged by topic you will be compelled to find out whether the heart of Dixie truly beats with wicked rhythms. Meet a cast of rascals and ruffians as you relive the era of American piracy and smuggling. Discover legendary sorcery and unspeakable rumors surrounding Voodoo and ghosts. Examine violence, the largest mass-lynching ever on US soil, and a unique red-light district. Remember, though, to have a jazz band or recording handy...or the famed and frightening Axman may get you! Here, the sallow specter of crime tends to stand with one foot in the annals of historical fact, the other in folklore.

Over the years, the Great Lakes - Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario - have carried Native Americans, explorers, immigrants, bandits, miners, warriors, and entrepreneurs and have inspired great tales of life on and around the water. What secrets do the Great Lakes, also known as the Five Sisters, hold deep? With nearly 60 images and illustrations, Great Lakes Folklore aims to answer that question. Relive the saga and tragedy of maritime ships the Success and Griffin. Meet the nefarious Lake Erie monster. Learn the story of Oliver Hazard Perry and the Battle of Lake Erie. These stories and more await. May they take you to places you have never been before.

The first A-to-Z listing of extraordinary, supernatural, paranormal, and Fortean/inexplicable phenomena on the American Great Lakes. These five majestic freshwater seasLakes Superior, Huron, Erie, Michigan and Ontariohave hosted a treasure-trove of fantastic sailors' tales, mysteries, and legends. Here abide the long-standing rumors, myths and lore about mermaids, ghost ships, lake monsters, UFOs, USOs, vortices and triangles, Flying Dutchmen, wendigos, spook lights, haunted lighthouses, headless apparitions, melancholy mist-maidens, curses, talismans, thunderbirds, and sorcerers. Presented for the traveler, folklorist, ghost-buster, skeptic, cryptozoologist, or the just plain curious.