Edgar Allan Poe #1 - “The Black Cat” [5 WORKS BY THE MASTER]

Mayara Albuquerque
Sep 6, 2018 · 6 min read

Greetings, fellow readers! In this series I intend to bring five works by an author, with many or few years of career, and talk about each of them, from my impressions to the publication history and curiosities of each one, and in the first post I will also always present a summary of the author’s career. And the one chosen for the debut of this series was none other than Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most influential authors in the world to this day. And the reason for my choice, you will know in the course of this article.

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, publisher, and literary critic. He was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, and died on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore. To this day, the exact cause of his death is a mystery, but due to his not very healthy lifestyle and the low life expectancy of the time, his death was attributed to a number of factors, such as alcohol, drugs, tuberculosis, among others.

Poe became known for his mystery poems and short stories, exploring and using the macabre as the main theme, and is regarded as a central figure of American Romanticism. In addition, he is considered the inventor of the detective genre, having one of his tales served as inspiration for the creation of the iconic character Sherlock Holmes (that tale will also be commented in this series). Many also give him credit for having contributed to the rise of science fiction.

Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Nowadays, he’s a pop culture icon, not only in literature, but also in cinema, music and television. Many adaptations of his works have been made, being the most known those that count on the participation of a great name of horror movies: Vincent Price.

Vincent Price

There’s a much more recent film, called The Raven, whose name is based on Poe’s most famous poem (and his most famous work in general). The thriller mixes the writer’s real life with a fictional police investigation, where Poe spends his last days assisting the police to capture a serial killer that imitates the writer’s works in his crimes. Even though it’s not a biographical film, I found it interesting beacause it shows us a little of who Poe was and the situation in which he lived at the time.

poster of the movie “The Raven”

Regardless of whether you like what he has produced or not, his importance to the literary movement to which he belonged and his influence on everything we consume today are undeniable.

The first work which I will talk about in this series is the short story called The Black Cat, one of the author’s most famous tales. I chose it not only because it was the first short story I’ve read in my life, but also because it was my first short story written by Poe, and the story that inspired me to start writing my own short stories.

It was originally published in the Saturday Evening Post magazine, in August 19, 1843’s edition. It’s narrated by an unnamed character who tells about several pets he owned, especially a black cat to which he was very attached. But over time he inexplicably develops a repulsion to the cat and his behavior in general changes, not only with the animal, but also with his wife, and things start to happen from there. Being a Poe’s tale, those events are naturally very mysterious and dark.

When reason returned with the morning — when I had slept off the fumes of the night’s debauch — I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

As always, Poe portrays a reality far from perfect and comfortable, and he does it in a very organic way. In this story, he addresses the issue of guilt and how it can consume a person to insanity. The characters are written in such a way that the reader gets interested in them, even though they’re sometimes not very correct, and perhaps it’s their proximity to the real that attracts us.

Poe adds the supernatural to this reality with great dexterity, although he doesn’t make it very clear in this story whether there is even a supernatural element there, or whether it’s all just a few strange coincidences. And it’s this mystery, that doubt that makes everything more interesting; you understand what is going on there, but you don’t know what to attribute those events to. To me, this is one of Poe’s most intriguing tales, and it has a rather interesting premise that is to use all the superstition around the black cats to tell a story. A great story, by the way, that doesn’t follow a hero, but a common man toward insanity.

Unsurprisingly, The Black Cat has been adapted for the movies a few times, so I’m going to mention only those of more prominence.

The first one was a film with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Black Cat of 1934, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer.

Lugosi also participated in another adaptation of the story for the cinema, in 1941, directed by Albert S. Rogell, that also had actor Basil Rathbone in the cast.

Fun fact: Basil Rathbone was already interpreting at that time another classic of literature, by which he would become famous: Sherlock Holmes.

Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes

Among those adaptations, the one that is considered the most faithful to the original story is part of a trilogy of films by filmmaker Roger Corman, called Tales of Terror, of 1962, again with Basil Rathbone and Vincent Price as the protagonist.

If you are a fan of mystery and horror, contemporary or classic, and still don’t know Poe’s work, The Black Cat is a great starting point.

Mayara Albuquerque

Written by

Mayara Albuquerque is a brazilian published writer, screenwriter, book reviewer and the current Game Designer of Boto Alien Game Developer.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade