The Tell-Tale Heart

He insists he is not mad. He'll prove it to you. Just listen – listen to how calmly he can tell the story. There was an old man. There was an eye, pale and filmy, that the narrator could not bear to look upon. And there was a plan, carried out over seven slow nights, executed with a precision he is quite proud of. The deed is done. The body is hidden. No one will ever know. Except, of course, for the sound. That soft, steady, terrible sound, growing louder beneath the floorboards... First published in 1843, The Tell-Tale Heart is Edgar Allan Poe at his most razor-sharp – a few thousand words of pure, ratcheting dread that have lodged themselves in the bloodstream of horror ever since. A masterclass in the unreliable narrator. A short, sharp shock of a story.