The Masque of the Red Death Book download in PDF, ePub & Mobi
by Edgar Allan Poe
Gothic fiction Horror Death Time Inevitability Class Isolation
The Masque of the Red Death is a gothic horror tale written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in Graham's Magazine. The story follows the traditional structure of gothic narrative and is considered an allegory about the inevitability of death.
The story takes place at the castellated abbey of the happy and dauntless and sagacious Prince Prospero. Prospero and 1,000 other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague with gruesome symptoms that has swept over the land.
The disease is so brutal that patients fail in less than half an hour, with symptoms such as sharp pain or dizzy spells. Prospero and his retinue completely ignore the terror and suffering of the population and will stay in their fortified refuge, enjoying all kinds of luxuries.
The book was made into a movie by the same name, The Masque of the Red Death, from 1964 and starring Vincent Price and Hazel Court.
"The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal — the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution."
#16 in Horror (this month)
#36 in Short Stories (this month)
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The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe is believed to be in the public domain in the United States only. It may still be copyrighted in other countries. If you are not in the United States, please check your local laws to ensure this eBook is in the public domain in your country before downloading The Masque of the Red Death in PDF or ePub.
WHY READ THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH IN 2025?
183 years later, still timelyA brief, vivid parable: a walled party, colored rooms, and a visitor no lock can stop. Poe condenses dread into symbols you will remember.
Excellent for classes on mood, allegory, and time. It invites talk about denial, privilege, and the rituals we invent to feel safe. Five pages; long afterglow.
Time keeps pace
The clock that no music can drown.
Color as code
Rooms that tell a moral story.
Gothic hush
Masks, corridors, inevitable footsteps.
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About Edgar Allan Poe
Precision of mood and method that invents detective logic and the claustrophobia of obsession.
We have 19 books by Edgar Allan Poe in the AliceAndBooks library
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His vesture was dabbled in blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.
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