The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar

"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe about a mesmerist who puts a man in a suspended hypnotic state at the moment of death. An example of a tale of suspense and horror, 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 it to be a factual account. Poe toyed with this for a while before admitting it was a work of pure fiction in his marginalia. Edgar Allan Poe is also famous for such works as «The Raven», «The Cask of Amontillado», «The Fall of the House of Usher», «The Masque of the Red Death», «The Pit and the Pendulum», «The M…