The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
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| Author | Edgar Allan Poe |
|---|---|
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Suspense, Hoax |
| Released in | The American Review and Broadway Journal (simultaneously) |
| Released | December 1845 |
"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" is a short story by renowned author Edgar Allan Poe. It is also, to a certain degree, a hoax as it was published without claiming to be fictional, and many at the time of publication (1845), took to be a factual account. Poe toyed with this for a while before admitting it was a work of pure fiction in his "Marginalia". It is an excellent example of a tale of suspense and horror.
[edit] Plot summary
The narrator, named P--, describes his developing interest in Mesmerism, a pseudoscience involving bringing a patient into a hypnogogic state by the influence of magnetism (Mesmerism later developed into hypnotism). He points out that, as far as he knows, no one has ever been mesmerized at the point of death, and he is curious to see what effects mesmerism would have on a dying person.
His friend Valdemar, who is on the point of death from tuberculosis, consents to the experiment. As Valdemar descends into a trance, he reports first that he is dying - then that he is dead. P-- leaves him in a mesmeric state for seven months, during which time he is without pulse, heartbeat or perceptible breathing, his skin cold and pale.
P-- eventually attempts to awaken him, and in the process Valdemar's entire body almost immediately decays into a "nearly liquid mass of loathsome--of detestable putrescence".
[edit] Adaptation
"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" was one of three Poe-inspired segments in the 1962 film Roger Corman-directed Tales of Terror.
[edit] External links
| Edgar Allan Poe |
|---|
| Poems |
|
Poetry (1824) • O, Tempora! O, Mores! (1825) • Song (1827) • Imitation (1827) • Spirits of the Dead (1827) • A Dream (1827) • Stanzas (1827) • Tamerlane (1827) • The Lake (1827) • Evening Star (1827) • A Dream (1827) • To Margaret (1827) • The Happiest Day (1827) • To The River —— (1828) (1828) • Romance (1829) • Fairy-Land (1829) • To Science (1829) • To Isaac Lea (1829) • Al Aaraaf (1829) • An Acrostic (1829) • Elizabeth (1829) • To Helen (1831) • A Paean (1831) • The Sleeper (1831) • The City in the Sea (1831) • The Valley of Unrest (1831) • Israfel (1831) • The Coliseum (1833) • Enigma (1833) • Fanny (1833) • Serenade (1833) • Song of Triumph from Epimanes (1833) • Latin Hymn (1833) • To One in Paradise (1833) • Hymn (1835) • Politician (1835) • May Queen Ode (1836) • Spiritual Song (1836) • Bridal Ballad (1837) • To Zante (1837) • The Haunted Palace (1839) • Silence, a Sonnet (1839) • Lines on Joe Locke (1843) • The Conqueror Worm (1843) • Lenore (1843) • Eulalie (1843) • A Campaign Song (1844) • Dream-Land (1844) • Impromptu. To Kate Carol (1845) • To Frances (1845) • The Divine Right of Kings (1845) • Epigram for Wall Street (1845) • The Raven (1845) • A Valentine (1846) • Beloved Physician (1847) • An Enigma (1847) • Deep in Earth (1847) • Ulalume (1847) • Lines on Ale (1848) • To Marie Louise (1848) • Evangeline (1848) • Eldorado (1849) • For Annie (1849) • The Bells (1849) • Annabel Lee (1849) • A Dream Within A Dream (1850) • Alone (1875) |
| Tales |
| Metzengerstein (1832) • The Duc De L'Omelette (1832) • A Tale of Jerusalem (1832) • Loss of Breath (1832) • Bon-Bon (1832) • MS. Found in a Bottle (1833) • The Assignation (1834) • Berenice (1835) • Morella (1835) • Lionizing (1835) • The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall (1835) • King Pest (1835) • Shadow - A Parable (1835) • Four Beasts in One - The Homo-Cameleopard (1836) • Mystification (1837) • Silence - A Fable (1837) • Ligeia (1838) • How to Write a Blackwood Article (1838) • A Predicament (1838) • The Devil in the Belfry (1839) • The Man That Was Used Up (1839) • The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) • William Wilson (1839) • The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion (1839) • Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling (1840) • The Business Man (1840) • The Man of the Crowd (1840) • The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) • A Descent into the Maelstrom (1841) • The Island of the Fay (1841) • The Colloquy of Monos and Una (1841) • Never Bet the Devil Your Head (1841) • Eleonora (1841) • Three Sundays in a Week (1841) • The Oval Portrait (1842) • The Masque of the Red Death (1842) • The Landscape Garden (1842) • The Mystery of Marie Roget (1842) • The Pit and the Pendulum (1842) • The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) • The Gold-Bug (1843) • The Black Cat (1843) • Diddling (1843) • The Spectacles (1844) • A Tale of the Ragged Mountains (1844) • The Premature Burial (1844) • Mesmeric Revelation (1844) • The Oblong Box (1844) • The Angel of the Odd (1844) • Thou Art the Man (1844) • The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq. (1844) • The Purloined Letter (1844) • The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade (1845) • Some Words with a Mummy (1845) • The Power of Words (1845) • The Imp of the Perverse (1845) • The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether (1845) • The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845) • The Sphinx (1846) • The Cask of Amontillado (1846) • The Domain of Arnheim (1847) • Mellonta Tauta (1849) • Hop-Frog (1849) • Von Kempelen and His Discovery (1849) • X-ing a Paragrab (1849) • Landor's Cottage (1849) |
| Other Works |
| Essays: Maelzel's Chess Player (1836) • The Daguerreotype (1840) • The Philosophy of Furniture (1840) • A Few Words on Secret Writing (1841) • The Rationale of Verse (1843) • Morning on the Wissahiccon (1844) • Old English Poetry (1845) • The Philosophy of Composition (1846) • The Poetic Principle (1846) • Eureka (1848) Hoaxes: • The Balloon-Hoax (1844) Novels: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1837) • The Journal of Julius Rodman (1840) Plays: Scenes From 'Politian' (1835) Other: The Conchologist's First Book (1839) • The Light-House (1849) |
