In 1844, the second great cholera pandemic (1826 – 1837) had been over for seven years, fear of the disease had not lessoned and minor outbreaks had continued to occur. More importantly perhaps than the minor out breaks that the authorities had learned to contain were the lasting phycological scars the pandemic created within society. One of which was a tendency to isolate sick communities entirely if cholera was suspected, which was not unbeneficial as long as you were not one of the healthy barricaded in with the sick. The other was an increase in Taphophobia, the fear of been buried alive.

The reason Taphophobia increased dramatically in the aftermath of the cholera pandemic’s was simple enough, the authorities often mandated that the dead be buried as soon as possible. In the case of the poor, who due to lack of sanitation tended were far more likely to be caught up in a major outbreak this often meant mass graves for whole districts, with the bodies of the dead wrapped in shrouds and thrown in, like the plague pits of old. Grim stories abounded of people wrongly pronounced dead, awaking to find themselves buried under the bodies and weakened by illness struggling to exhume themselves before the pit was filled in. Wealthier victims too were said to awaken within their coffins, and in some rare cases fight their way free, or be heard by loved ones visiting the grave site and rescued. Which lead to the popularity of ‘grave bells’ like the design below.

Of course much of these cases were urban myths that spread the way such things do. That said one notable doctor of the time Henry Jacques Garrigues known mostly for the introduction of anesthetic to America once said…

“out of every 200 coffins put under ground in this country the occupant of at least one of them is simply in a lethargic state and is buried alive”

It was against this background that our own Dear Edgar wrote The Premature Burial. Though in no way was this his first delve into the subject. Back in 1835 at the height of the second cholera pandemic Poe wrote Berenice, the name sake of which was mistakenly buried alive, in 1839 Madeline Usher was entombed alive before the house fell and while those are obvious examples they are not alone. Poe knew the the fear of been buried alive was a very real fear commonly held within the populous. If anything it would be surprising if he had not written about it. What he wrote is something of a masterpiece of phycological horror…

The story begins with the narrator talking about the ghastly fates of many, relating several famous examples of people being presumed dead, or buried alive either by accident or design. Most of these I can only assume were Poe made up, or took from reports of a dubious nature, but all of them hold the germ of possibility and are described in detail. A couple of these would be gripping stories in of themselves, in particular the wonderful tale of Mademoiselle Victorine Lafourcade which could almost be an outline for a decades spanning novel that could have rivaled Wuthering Heights as a gothic romance.

The narrator, it is fair to say, is a tad obsessed with stories of those who are inhumed before their time, and obsession that starts to affect him directly when he develops catalepsy, and fears he will fall into a stupor and himself be buried alive. Because of this he has left complex instructions to avoid such a fate, such as he is not to be buried until his body begins visibly putrefying. That a safety catch be fitted to the family tomb so it can be opened form the inside, and slotted vents be fitted so sunlight will always reach through into the tomb.

This story is all about the build up, which is slow and deliberate in nature. Poe takes great pains with the small stories full of gruesome details to explore the reasons behind his narrators fear of been buried alive. It is a tad long winded, which make me suspect he was again been paid by the word as the main story is really the second half of the tale, in which the narrator focus on himself. Unlike some of the other times when Poe was clearly ‘being paid by the word’ the story as a whole does not suffer from feeling bloated, the early part which may be filler is still wonderfully written and engaging. Where the story does go astray a little is for a section towards the back end which becomes very esoteric for a short while which doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the tale.

There is nothing wrong with the esoteric sequence, it is beautiful in its own strange way, but it just doesn’t need to be there, and feels odder for it, but that perhaps was Poe’s intention. His narrator believes he is in a casket below the ground and his worst fears have come true, so a little esoteric sequence talking to death is not entirely out of place, just at odds with the more prosaic nature of the tale as a whole. Yet again, like the long introduction section it just works with a dark beauty all its own just the same.

The ending is something of a stretch, but this is a story for the telling not the pay off at the end. Suffice to say the narrator is not actually in a coffin and it is his own fear that convinced him that this was to be his fate. But not every story is about the end and this one is truly a story about the telling.

A GREATER FLOCK OF RAVENS GATHERED AROUND A FRESH GRAVE

Should you read it: It is one of those perfect stories that hits every note, a Ballard of beautiful wonder that is perfect because it is perfect. So yes, yes you should…

Bluffers fact: Before this story, as I mentioned earlier, Poe wrote several stories including Berenice, The Fall of the House of Usher, Morella, Ligeia, with the exception of this one and the later story The Cask of Amontillado the victims of these premature burials were all women, and all of them come back to haunt the men telling the story.

We are not sure what this says about our Dear Edgar, but he certainly was something of a taphophile, but then so are we all at Halloween.