Frankly, this remains today one of the most utterly disgusting tales in all of English literature. You can feel the nipping of the rats on your flesh as you read it. ( )

The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts.

The Pit and the Pendulum is easily one of my favorite Poe story’s. Set during the time of the Spanish Inquisition, it’s descriptive narrative lends weight to the tale. One can almost feel oneself beside the unnamed narrator facing the terror of the pit and feeling the breeze from the pendulum as it swings closer and closer. ( )

Short, creepy as all get pout, macabre, & insidious, it's Poe at his blackest. We never know the age or name of the young man who is sentenced to death & finds himself in a dungeon. As he feels his way around, he attempts to discover the dimensions of his prison, trips, & falls right at the edge of a pit in the center of the cell. Terrified, he retreats to the edge of the cell, where he drinks the water that's provided for him by an unknown hand. When he wakes next, it's discovered that the water was drugged, & he's strapped to a table in what amounts to mummy wrappings, & then he notices the razor edged pendulum above him. In the hours/days(?) even he himself doesn't know, he watches it descend little by little, it's scythed edge sweeping back & forth with a hiss. At first he embraces what is sure to be his certain death, then snaps out of it, & devises an ingenious way to escape his winding sheets. The rest of the story I won't spoil..... ( )

I love this story. It's creepy and it lingers in the brain forever. ( )