The Cask of Amontillado is Edgar Allan Poe’s short but enigmatic masterpiece. Set in an unnamed Italian city, we hear the story of how Montresor lures Fortunato through the catacombs into the Montresor family vault and there chains him up and bricks him in for eternity. Why he does it we will never know, but he does so with a casual savagery that is truly chilling.
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“Poe gave the world a fine collection of neurotics, paranoids and psychopaths. But none are quite as deranged as the narrator of The Cask of Amontillado.”
— New York Times Book Review
“Almost universally referred to as Poe’s most perfect short story; in fact, it has often been considered to be one of the world’s most perfect short stories.”
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Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1848) transformed the American literary landscape with his innovations in the short story genre and his haunting lyrical poetry, and he is credited with inventing American gothic horror and detective fiction. He was first published in 1827 and then began a career as a magazine writer and editor and a sharp literary critic. In 1845 the publication of his most famous poem, “The Raven,” brought him national fame.
Andrew Ward is the author of several award-winning historical works, including River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War; Our Bones Are Scattered: The Cawnpore Massacres in the Indian Mutiny of 1857; and Dark Midnight When I Rise: The Story of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. A former contributing editor and essayist at the Atlantic Monthly, he is a commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered and a columnist for the Washington Post. Ward has also written numerous articles for American Heritage and National Geographic, as well as documentary screenplays for WGBH and the Hallmark Channel.