The Black Cat

Read The Black Cat

Read the complete English text of The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe. Choose an online section or download a free PDF in your preferred paper size.

This reading edition contains 3,915 words in 1 original section. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.

Author: Edgar Allan Poe. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.

Opening excerpt

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 it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified—have tortured—have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but horror—to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may…

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