The Pit and the Pendulum
by
Edgar Allan Poe
This electronic book is a publication of the Pennsylvania State Universitys Electronic Classics Series,
Jim Manis, Faculty Editor.
“The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allan Poe is a publicationof the Penn-
sylvania State University. This Portable Document file is furnished free and
without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for
any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the
Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, nor anyone as-
sociated with the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility
for the material contained within the document or for the file as an elec-
tronic transmission, in any way.
“The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allan Poe, the Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity, Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA
18201-1291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing stu-
dent publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to
free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them.
Copyright © 1998 The Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university.
The Pit and the Pendulum
by
Edgar Allan Poe
Impia tortorum longas hic turba furores Sanguinis innocui
non satiata, aluit. Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris
antro, Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.
- Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected
upon the site of the Jacobin Club House in Paris.
I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when
they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt
that my senses were leaving me. The sentence, the dread
sentence of death, was the last of distinct accentuation which
reached my ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial
voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It
conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution, perhaps from its
association in fancy with the burr of a mill-wheel. This only
for a brief period, for pre