In The Tell-Tale Heart the narrator strives to convince the reader of his sanity, while describing a murder he committed. The motivation for murder appears to be the narrator’s fixation on the victim’s cloudy vulture-eye. After disposing of the body, the narrator calmly entertains (at first) three policemen who come to investigate reports of screaming in the night. First published in 1843 in The Pioneer, a short-lived Boston magazine edited by James Russell Lowell, The Tell-Tale Heart is widely considered a classic of the Gothic fiction genre and is one of Poe’s most famous short stories.
Circa l’autore
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American author of short stories, poetry, and literary criticism and theory. Titled ‘The Master of the Macabre’ he is famous for his tales of mystery and horror. He was one of the earliest masters of the short story and is widely credited as the creator of detective fiction.