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“The Tell-Tale Heart” is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous tales, a classic of Gothic horror widely included in anthologies. However, during Poe’s lifetime, much of his writing was controversial, particularly in North America, because of its dark subject matter. “The Tell-Tale Heart” was no exception. The literary taste of the time favored didactic writing, that is, writing that has a clear moral or message. Poe, instead, believed that work should eschew having a clear meaning and instead focus on creating a unified mood. Thus, when “The Tell-Tale Heart” was first published in a magazine called The Pioneer in January 1843, literary critics recognized Poe’s mastery at creating atmosphere, but predictably criticized the story’s content. Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the New York Tribune, remarked that the story is “a strong and skilful, but to our minds overstrained and repulsive, analysis of the feelings and promptings of an insane homicide.”
However, moralists like Greeley, who even tried to limit his reports on local murders in his paper, did not staunch the public appetite for horror. While “The Tell-Tale Heart” did not receive special recognition, it still thrilled readers, generating enough interest to merit reprinting in many other periodicals. Interestingly, some of the editors changed the title of the story before publication. One Montreal journal, the Literary Garland, considered “Confession of a Maniac” a more fitting title. A London journal called the Cleaves Penny Gazette found it necessary to append “or, the Unconscious Madman” to “The Tell-Tale Heart.” It’s possible the editors changed the title as a form of disclaimer, as if to promise the reader that they knew the content of the story was dark, and to assure they didn’t agree with the narrator’s actions. Not all title changes appear to have been in the service of morality. The editors of Oakland, California’s, Oakland Daily Evening Tribune decided on “Vulture Eye: The Horrible Tale of a Merciless Murderer,” which certainly has an almost lurid, pulpy sensationalism.
It took years after Poe’s death for “The Tell-Tale Heart” to finally gain the literary respect it has today. In a retrospective of Poe’s work, the critic George Woodbury referred to “The Tell-Tale Heart” as a mere “tale of conscience,” believing it to be a didactic tale. The well-respected early twentieth literary critic Alfred Charles Ward also believed “The Tell-Tale Heart” to be a moralistic parable, and as such in his 1924 book on the craft of short stories complained the story’s effect is “marred by the insanity of the narrator,” and in fact considered Poe’s exploration of madness to be his great flaw as a writer. Ward went on to further dismiss the exploration of dark topics in Poe’s work as being a sign of Poe himself being of unsound mind. However, today critics acknowledge Poe’s skill and craft as a writer, with “The Tell-Tale Heart” upheld both as a masterpiece of Gothic fiction and a prime example of Poe creating the singular effect he wanted his stories to have.
