. THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR (1845)

This story, famously adapted to the 1962 film TALES OF TERROR, is little more than a reprise of Poe's MESMERIC REVELATIONS from the previous year, in that again a hypnotist endeavors to place a dying man under a spell, to see what happens to a human mind as it dies. But VALDEMAR is a much more relatable story, and where REVELATIONS confines itself to an uncanny effect-- the body of the dying man hardens like stone after death-- VALDEMAR goes the extra mile and has the subject dissolve into "putrescence."