#7 in Short stories
The Tell-Tale Heart
- 30
- Pages
- Film 1914 +3
- On screen
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Our view
“The Tell-Tale Heart” lives in the voice of its narrator, who insists a little too hard on being sane. In thirty pages he recounts a murder and its undoing, calm, meticulous and plainly not to be trusted. Some readers find the telling dry despite its tension; a story this short makes it easy to judge for yourself.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator's sanity while simultaneously describing a murder the narrator committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy pale blue "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it. The narrator emphasizes the careful calculation of the murder, attempting the perfect crime, complete with dismembering the body in the bathtub and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately, the narrator's actions result in hearing a thumping sound, which the narrator interprets as the dead man's beating heart.
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen 4 times — from 1914 to 2012.
- FilmThe Avenging ConscienceIMDb
- FilmThe Tell-Tale HeartIMDb
- Short filmTellIMDb
- FilmThe Tell-Tale HeartIMDb
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.3 across 371 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 71% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Short stories average of 7.8. That is how 8.0 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.4 | 60 | 16% |
| Hardcover | 8.2 | 311 | 84% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Tell-Tale Heart?
It has 30 pages — shorter than 100% of the ranked books in Short stories.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Short stories — with scores between 7.3 and 8.2, closest to this book.
