Pit and the Pendulum

The Pit and the Pendulum, for example, harbors many of these legitimate terrors, none supernatural in origin, although at times the narrator-protagonist s tormented consciousness may make him and readers temporarily think that supernaturalism is at work. The narrator-victim s confinement... 

Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation (Leipzig Tauchnitz, 1842), pp. 281-297. Poe met Dickens in Philadelphia in 1842 during his tour of the United States. Joan Dayan, Poe, Persons, and Property, American Literary History ii (Fall 1999) 406-407, argues that The Pit and the Pendulum and The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether are based on Dickens description of the Eastern Penitentiary. 

Life in Death (later, The Oval Portrait ) and The Masque of the Red Death appear in Graham s, yet Poe resigns from the magazine partway through the year. The Pit and the Pendulum appears in The Gift and the first two installments of The Mystery of Marie Roger appear in Snowden s Ladies Companion the last two months of the year. 

---