検索キーワード： "BLACK CAT" 選集・短編小説

This is a story from the Fall of the House of Usher collection. The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares: Premature burial, ghostly transformation, words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

"The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. An unnamed narrator suffering with alcoholism has a strong affection for pets, until he perversely turns to abusing them. In a drunken rage, he hangs his beloved black cat from a tree. He soon finds another black cat but develops a hatred for it as well. When he attempts to kill it with an axe, his wife stops him – and the narrator murders her instead, concealing the body behind a brick wall. But the cat, accidentally walled in with the corpse, alerts the police with its shrieking cry.