What would you get if you take Lewis Carroll’s fairy-tale imagination and filter it through Edgar Allan Poe’s terror-ridden and grotesque vision? Add a tint of humour and a pinch of satire and voilà – an allegorically nightmarish Last Supper, situated in a house, previously occupied by an undertaker. Parodying the Black Death, the short story indulges in farcical situations, abnormalities, and a lot of puns. The characters exist in a misshapen, surrealist reality that embraces and caricatures London’s immoral middle-class particularities and pleasures. Come for the author, endure the grotesque, and relish the ending!
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American poet, author, and literary critic. Most famous for his poetry, short stories, and tales of the supernatural, mysterious, and macabre, he is also regarded as the inventor of the detective genre and a contributor to the emergence of science fiction, dark romanticism, and weird fiction. His most famous works include "The Raven" (1945), "The Black Cat" (1943), and "The Gold-Bug" (1843).