This week’s weird fiction …

Review: “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Edgar Allan Poe, 1843.

Since this is one of the most read stories in all the English language, I’m going to dispense with a lot of plot synopsis.

You know the story. A crazy man, the story’s narrator, kills an old man because of his “evil eye”, buries the body under some floorboards, and, when the police come to investigate, confesses because he hears the beating of the man’s heart.

The opening sentence,

“TRUE! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been, and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”

and the closing sentences,

“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! — here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart!”

is justly famous.

Stephen Peithman’s annotations and notes are quite useful with this story. Continue reading →