John Bennett

John Bennett (1865-1956), who made Charleston his home for more than half a century, gave voice to the city's legends and folk tales, doing "for Charleston what Lafcadio Hearn did for New Orleans," according to his friend and fellow writer, Hervey Allen. In addition to such Lowcountry volumes as The Treasure of Peyre Gaillard (1906), Madame Margot (1921), and The Doctor to the Dead (1946), were his books for young people: Master Skylark: A Story of Shakespeare's Time (1897); Barnaby Lee (1902); and The Pigtail of Ah Ben Loo (1928). A volume of correspondence between Bennett and his University of South Carolina friend and colleague Yates Snowden, edited by Mary Crow Anderson of Columbia, was published by the USC Press in 1993.