LA MÁSCARA DE LA MUERTE ROJA Y OTROS CUENTOS GÓTICOS / THE MASK OF THE RED DEATH AND OTHER STORIES

Llega a nuestra colección Penguin Clásicos Góticos una cuidada selección de los cuentos más fascinantes del maestro del terror Edgar Allan Poe.

Esta terrorífica selección de cuentos recibe el nombre de uno de los relatos más referenciados y adaptados del autor: La máscara de la muerte roja, una alegoría sobre la inevitabilidad de la muerte. Junto a otros tan espeluznantes como El corazón delator o La caída de la casa Usher, completamos esta preciosa edición que ya forma parte de nuestra colección Penguin Clásicos Góticos.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

First published in 1842, The Mask of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe is an allegorical short story in the gothic horror vein. It is the 15th century. An unidentified country is infected with a contagion known as the Red Death. Half the population has succumbed to a quick, gory, and painful death. Prospero, the prince, deals with the situation by inviting a thousand of his people to revel with him in a palace designed with seven rooms located in a secluded abbey. Each of the rooms, which are arranged east to west, are decorated with a monochromatic color scheme, and lit only by a brazier in the hallway which casts light through a stained-glass window. The last room to the west is decorated in black and contains a large clock that strikes heavily on the hour with a tone that stops the musicians from playing and the dancers in their tracks. As the midnight hour approaches, a tall figure enters, wearing a funeral shroud and a mask resembling the countenance of a corpse. All are terrified; some seek to fend off the intruder, to no avail. They discover there is nothing beneath his robes and mask. And then....