# What is the best Edgar Allan Poe story?

> Detective puzzles, buried-alive nightmares and one very talkative heart under the floor. All of them were in print before 1850.

*By YPB Team · Published October 13, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-edgar-allan-poe-story*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **The Tell-Tale Heart** — score 1000/1000
   A murderer insists he is sane while the victim's heart beats under the floorboards (1843).
2. **The Cask of Amontillado** — score 622/1000
   Montresor lures Fortunato into the catacombs with the promise of rare sherry (1846).
3. **The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar** — score 622/1000
   A dying man is mesmerized at the moment of death, with ghastly results (1845).
4. **The Purloined Letter** — score 551/1000
   Dupin finds a stolen letter hidden in plain sight (1844).
5. **Hop-Frog** — score 551/1000
   A jester takes fiery revenge on a cruel king at a masquerade (1849).
6. **The Gold-Bug** — score 466/1000
   A cipher and a beetle lead to Captain Kidd's buried treasure (1843).
7. **The Black Cat** — score 363/1000
   A drunkard's cruelty to his cat leads to a wall that gives him away (1843).
8. **Ligeia** — score 363/1000
   A widower's dead first wife seems to return through his second (1838).
9. **William Wilson** — score 363/1000
   A man is shadowed all his life by a double with his own name (1839).
10. **The Premature Burial** — score 363/1000
   A catalepsy sufferer is obsessed with being buried alive (1844).
11. **A Descent into the Maelström** — score 0/1000
   A Norwegian fisherman survives a giant whirlpool by reasoning (1841).
12. **The Fall of the House of Usher** — score 0/1000
   A visit to the decaying Usher mansion ends with the house splitting apart (1839).
13. **The Masque of the Red Death** — score 0/1000
   Prince Prospero's sealed masquerade cannot keep a plague outside (1842).
14. **The Pit and the Pendulum** — score 0/1000
   A prisoner of the Inquisition watches a blade swing lower each minute (1842).
15. **The Murders in the Rue Morgue** — score 0/1000
   C. Auguste Dupin solves a locked-room double murder in the first modern detective story (1841).

Tags: books, horror, short stories, edgar allan poe