Poe is a very complicated author. His literary works are perplexed, disturbing, and even grotesque. His frequent illnesses may have provoked his engrossment in such things. In 1842 Dr. John W. Francis diagnosed Poe with sympathetic heart trouble as well as brain congestion. He also noted Poe'...

"For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect...yet mad am I not and very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I would unburden my soul."Thus the narrator begins to confess to murdering hi...