Known as a beautiful Southern city and distinguished by its opulent homes, towering church steeples and gracious hospitality, Charleston, South Carolina, has long been associated with the genteel side of Southern living. However, beyond the outward appearances that most people associate with Charleston, there is another side that most visitors and residents alike would not believe is part of the very fabric from which the city??'s history was woven. Wicked Charleston: The Dark Side of the Holy City, by local resident and tour guide Mark Jones, opens the door to the dark alleys and seedy characters not often associated with the Charleston of today. From the sexual escapades of an original Lord Proprietor and the comings and goings of the most notorious pirates, to secret brothels and nightclubs, Jones leads the reader back to a time when "drinking, eating and whoring with more than fifty wenches" was more common in the Holy City than one may imagine.

In 1827 Pvt. Edgar Perry arrived at Ft. Moultrie on Sullivan's Island near Charleston and served for 14 months. The haunted, turbulent atmosphere of the South Carolina Lowcountry was a perfect environment to feed Pvt. Perry's poetic despair and dark sensitivity. Twenty years later he was internationally known as Edgar Allan Poe. His tortured literary genius is perfectly reflected in these four Charleston-based tales from the Master of Melancholy.

FROM RAGS TO RAGTIME - THEY CREATED THE SOUNDTRACK OF THE 20TH CENTURY For the first time, here is the stirring story of the Jenkins Orphanage Band and its role in American popular music. From slavery to freedom, follow the inspirational rags-to-riches story of some of America's greatest jazz musicians brought together by the determination of one man, a freed black slave named Rev. Daniel Jenkins. His Jazz Nursery revolutionized the music world One cold December day in 1891, Rev. Jenkins discovered four black children huddled together in a railroad car. He had more than 500 children in his care. To support the Orphanage, Jenkins organized a brass band which performed on the Charleston streets for hand-outs. Ten years later, the Jenkins Band appeared in London, played for President Teddy Roosevelt and premiered on Broadway. Members of the Jenkins Band played with Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Louis Armstrong. Then, tragically in 1919, one of the Jenkins' musicians committed a brutal murder which shocked America During the next decade, the Roaring 20s, America underwent a tumultuous change in which everybody was soon DOIN' THE CHARLESTON ILLUSTRATED WITH MORE THAN 70 PHOTOS