The Tell-Tale Heart

by Edgar Allan Poe, Harry Clarke (Illustrator)

Overview

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is probably the best known of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories. And was first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after he murders an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer dismembers and hides the body under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator's guilt manifests itself in the hallucination that the man's heart is still beating under the floorboards.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012171771
Publisher:	Jeanne Gibson
Publication date:	01/20/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	310 KB

About the Author

Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849, was an American writer, poet, and editor, often credited with being the father of modern detective-fiction. His short stories, especially, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Premature Burial,” are often included in high school literature classes and who could ever forget the haunting line, “Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore,’” from his poem, The Raven?

His real name was Edgar Poe, but he was raised by the Allan family of West Virginia, who took him in after the death of his mother. His father had abandoned the family years earlier.

After failing at an army career, Poe turned to writing poetry and later switched his focus to prose which included short stories, literary criticism, and an effort at writing a journal of his own life. Unfortunately, this last endeavor was cut short when he died at the young age of 40.