In ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ and other tales of gothic horror, Edgar Allan Poe writes as no one else ever has of creeping, mounting terrors, of malevolent tormentors and of a mind’s own sickening madness Outside the abbey’s armoured walls, the common poor are ravaged by a grisly pestilence known as the ‘Red Death’, while within, safe and untroubled, the happy Prince Prospero hosts lavish entertainments. But, in their immodest comfort, the Prince and his guests are not as safe as they hope from the horrors of the outside world …