Edgar Allan Poe Short Stories (in englischer Sprache)

The narrator of “The Black Cat” is an animal lover who, as he descends into alcoholism and perverse violence, begins mistreating his wife and his black cat Pluto. When Pluto attacks him in self-defense one night, he seizes the cat in a fury, cuts out one of its eyes, and hangs it. That night a fire destroys his house, leaving him in dire poverty. He later adopts a one-eyed black cat that he finds at a low-life tavern, but after he nearly trips on the cat, he attempts to kill it too. When his wife intervenes, he kills her instead and calmly conceals her in a wall. In the end the black cat reveals the narrator’s crime to the police.

The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe is a classically unsettling story. It is narrated by a madman who decides to kill the old man he lives with because he can't stand the gaze of the man's strange eye. However, after committing the crime, the narrator becomes convinced he can hear the old man's heart beating and gives away the location of the body.

The PIT AND THE PENDULUM tells the story of a man condemned to death in the Spanish Inquisition. He is tied on his back in the bottom of a pit and watches a pendulum swinging back and forth above his head. With each swing of the Pendulum it comes a bit closer to his body. Attached to the bottom of the pendulum is a sharp knife which will slowly cut into his flesh as soon as it reaches his body. It takes days for the pendulum to reach his body during which time he suffers great mental anguish. Just before it reaches his body he is freed from his torture.