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During the carnival season in an Italian city, Montresor meets his enemy Fortunato, a proud wine expert who is already a little drunk. Pretending to need his…
During the carnival season in an Italian city, Montresor meets his enemy Fortunato, a proud wine expert who is already a little drunk. Pretending to need his opinion on a cask of rare Amontillado sherry, Montresor leads him down into the damp family catacombs beneath his palazzo, deeper and deeper among the bones, toward a revenge he has planned with great care.
Context and significance
Published in 1846, this short tale is one of Edgar Allan Poe's most perfect, told by the murderer himself half a century later, and it never says what insult started it all. It takes only a few minutes to read and is impossible to forget. See Poe's life and his Fall of the House of Usher.
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) was born in Boston to travelling actors and orphaned before he was three. Raised by a Richmond merchant who later disowned him, he lived by his pen as a poet, critic and magazine editor, always short of money. His young wife Virginia died of tuberculosis in 1847, and two years later Poe was found delirious in Baltimore and died days later, in circumstances that are still a mystery.
He made the short story an art of total effect, wrote tales of terror such as The Fall of the House of Usher, invented the detective story with 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' and wrote 'The Raven', one of the most famous poems in English. French poets led by Baudelaire honoured him before America did.