The Fall of the House of Usher

"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. The story was first published in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in September 1839. It was slightly revised before being included in a collection of his fiction entitled Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. It contains within it the poem "The Haunted Palace", which had earlier been published separately in the April 1839 issue of the Baltimore Museum magazine. The tale opens with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness and asking for his comfort. Although Poe wrote this short story before the invention of modern psychological science, Usher's symptoms can be described according to its terminology. They include hyperesthesia (extreme hypersensitivity to light, sounds, smells, and tastes), hypochondria, and acute anxiety. It is revealed that Usher's twin sister, Madeline, is...