"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a famous short story by American author
Edgar Allan Poe. He first published the story in January 1843, in the short-lived
Pioneer magazine. "Tell-Tale" is about a nameless man who kills an old man for a really strange reason, which we won't give away here. The nameless man tells the story of the murder to prove he is
not insane.
Poe was born January 19, 1809 in
Boston, Massachusetts to actors Elizabeth and David Poe, both of whom died before Poe's second birthday. Shortly thereafter, Poe moved to Virginia to live with the childless couple John and Frances Allan.
His
biography has fascinated scholars and readers for a long time, and nobody can quite pin him down. Many scholars agree that he was a heavy drinker and was addicted to the drug laudanum. There is much gossip, speculation, and fabrication regarding the man's death, but he probably passed away as a result of drug and alcohol-related complications. He died October 13, 1849, at Church Hospital in
Baltimore, Maryland (
source).
Poe believed that a perfect story should be readable in one sitting, that it should be a tightly controlled, highly compressed narrative that hit on topics to which everybody can relate. Weighing in at ten precise paragraphs, "Tell-Tale" is an excellent example of Poe's theory of writing. For more, check out his essay
"Philosophy of Composition."