The spectre of the real-life disease must surely have felt as frightening and inexorable as Poe’s fictionalised plague.Īlmost 100 years later, this resonates with the Coronavirus pandemic. Like cholera at the time, the Red Death had no known cause or cure. “There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.” Compare this with Poe’s grim description of a plague in The Masque of the Red Death: Sometimes death would follow within hours. There’s a clear influence between the pandemics Poe lived through and the plague of his 1842 short story.Ĭholera spread through contaminated food, water and sewage, causing intense diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle spasms. Poe even caught cholera himself in 1849 and expected to die. Cholera and yellow fever killed tens of thousands across America in the 1830s and 1840s, particularly among poorer communities. Then a stranger joins the party seemingly dressed as a plague victim.

Prince Prospero retreats to his castle to drink and dance until the disease known as the “Red Death” is over.

What is the Masque of the Red Death about?Ī virulent plague is sweeping the country, and half the population has died. Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic story The Masque of the Red Death rings true to the horrors of Covid and self-interestedness.

Poe the red death