The Tell-Tale Heart Book download in PDF, ePub & Mobi
by Edgar Allan Poe
Gothic Horror Short Story Guilt Insanity Paranoia
The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe first published in the literary journal The Pioneer in 1843.
A narrator with very sharp senses, who from the first moment makes it clear to us that he is not a normal person, he is obsessed with the sick eye of an old man with whom he lives. This old man has a cloudy, bluish eye similar to a vulture's eye. The relationship between the two and why they live together is unknown. The story does not delve into too much detail of both.
The obsession increases to the point of wanting to kill him, which leads the narrator to plan the crime in detail and finally carry it out. Hide the dismembered corpse in the house, under the wooden floor.
The neighbors hear screams and the police arrive to investigate what has happened. The narrator tries to disguise and hide the crime, but he begins to hear in his head a sound similar to a heart beating under the stage, before which he cannot bear the guilt and gives himself away and declares himself guilty of murder...
This digital edition of The Tell-Tale Heart is based on the transcription first published in The Pioneer in January 1843 by Wikisource.
#12 in Horror (this month)
#23 in Short Stories (this month)
Download this book
The The Tell-Tale Heart book is available for download in PDF, ePUB and Mobi:
Copyright info
The Tell-Tale Heart 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 Tell-Tale Heart in PDF or ePub.
WHY READ THE TELL-TALE HEART IN 2025?
182 years later, still timelyNight, a heartbeat, and a mind arguing with itself. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a two-page sprint through guilt and noise—perfect for teaching point of view, pacing, and how obsession makes its own soundtrack.
Use it to show students how syntax speeds fear, how sound motifs unify a story, and how unreliable narration invites readers to judge. Read aloud; let the rhythm do the work. It’s a miniature you can revisit and still find new craft choices.
Sound as plot
Heartbeat and hush drive action and remorse.
Unreliable lens
What he insists on reveals what he hides.
Compression
Every word works; nothing spares you.
Perfect for
These collections include The Tell-Tale Heart:
Share this book
About Edgar Allan Poe
Precision of mood and method that invents detective logic and the claustrophobia of obsession.
We have 24 books by Edgar Allan Poe in the AliceAndBooks library
Other books that may interest you:
The best The Tell-Tale Heart quotes
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.
- Narrator
Almighty God!—no, no! They heard!—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery of my horror!—this I thought, and this I think.
True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.
And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight—but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.