My top six favourite Edgar Allan Poe stories.

No 6: The masque of the Red death.

A rich lord invites the other lords and ladies to seek shelter at his walled off castle when the Red Death strikes the country. While everyone else suffers from the plague outside, the lord and his guests selfishly party inside. But during the partying, the Red Death itself (in the form of a hooded figure wearing a red cloak) finds its way inside the castle and targets the lord and his guests.

No 5: The Black Cat.

A man with a hatred for his pet cat cuts out one of it's eyes. Then later on in the story kills his wife and bricks up the body in the cellar. When the police investigate, the man believes that he has gotten away with murder. Until a familiar meowing starts screeching behind the newly build wall. It turns out that the man had accidently bricked up the cat as well and it is this that he gets found out as the police demolishes the wall and finds the dead body.

No 4: The tell-tale heart.

A man (the narrator of this tale) is seriously disturbed by his elderly lodger. Due to the fact that he has a hideous glass eye. The man develops a obsession with the glass eye which leads him to spy on the old man while he sleeps. But the eye is always closed. Until one night the man finds the eye wide open and this sends him into a murderous rage as he drags the man out of bed and smothers him with the mattress. While this is happening, the man hears the old man's heart beating which disturbs him. He is glad when the man is dead and his heart finally stops. The man then places the old man's body under the floorboards of the bedroom and is about to go to be himself when the police turn up on the doorstep. They say that an neighbour had called them when they heard screaming coming from the man's house. The man lies, saying that it was him screaming as he woke up from a nightmare. And invites the policemen inside the house and into the room where the old man's body is hidden. The policemen then start talking and the man begins to get nervous due to their presence. Then he hears a muffled thump, thump noise. This turns out to be the old man's heart and it gets louder and louder. But only the man hears it. It gets on his nerves and tries to ignore it, but it still goes thump, thump. Until finally the man snaps and admits that he had committed murder. And that the body is under the floorboards of which they are standing on.

No 3: The Raven.

This is a poem where the narrator tells about his encounter with a talking raven which constantly says "Never More!".

No 2: The cask of Amontillado.

In Italy, there is a man named Montresor. Who had suffered great pain misery at the hands of another nobleman named Fortunato (we never get to know what Fortunato has done to him in the story). So Montresor hatches a plan for revenge. He finds a drunk Fortunato at a carnival (wearing a jester's outfit) and tells him that he had recently brought a pipe (three gallons) of a rare sherry called Amontillado. Fortunato is amazed and begs Montresor to take him to it. So Montresor leads him to his home and deep down into the catacombs under his house. Which due to the damp makes Fortunato develop a serious cough. But Montresor gives him a flask of a random drink to keep him happy. As they decent deeper, they talk about things like Montresor being part of the Masons and Montresor's family's coat of arms (which is a foot which is stepping on a snake which is also biting the ankle). They then arrive at a hole in the wall where Montresor claims to be were he has put the barrel of Amontillado is and tells Fortunato to take a look. When he does, Montresor quickly chains him up inside the hole. Then proceeds to brick up the hole. Trapping Fortunato inside and leaving him to die.

No 1: Hop Frog.
Hop Frog is the dwarf jester of a obese king of some unknown country. He is also a cripple (being unable to walk properly but can climb and swing without any trouble) and is constantly mistreated by the king and his seven ministers. One day Hop Frog decided that he had enough and so comes up with a plan. It happens to be the night that the king is to hold a masquerade but he and his ministers haven't decided what to wear. Hop Frog suggested that they dress up as orangutans and makes them their costumes (with tar and flax). Then he chains them up to make it look like they had escaped from their captors. During the masquerade, the king and his ministers make their entrance by running into the ballroom shrieking and frightening the other guests. But then they get tangled up in the chains and Hop Frog manages to attach the chains to the chandelier. They then get hung up high above the heads of the guests and Hop Frog leaps onto the tangles mess that is the king and his ministers (grabbing a lit torch while doing so). Hop Frog then drops the torch onto the flax and the king and his ministers are set on fire. And as they burn alive, Hop Frog makes his escape.