One of the great works of revenge fiction, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” has been so widely anthologized that it is considered required reading for many a high schooler,  to whom the narrator imparts two requirements for satisfactory vengeance--one, that the act must be committed with impunity, and two, that the victim must be unmistakably certain as to the identity of the avenger.

The locus of our story is the catacombs of the mighty Montresor family, a gloomy space of vaults and tombs—the perfect place, perhaps, for a perfect murder.

And now, turn down the lights, and join us for “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe….