40 Fun Facts About The Cask of Amontillado

Its title names a foreign wine, but in which country is The Cask of Amontillado usually said to take place?

Italy is the usual reading, though Poe never names the place. Montresor sneers that few Italians have real taste, and says most fake it to fool rich foreigners.

Amontillado, the bait in Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, is a variety of which fortified wine?

Sherry is the very wine Fortunato sneers that a rival cannot tell from Amontillado. The boast undercuts the supposed expert, because Amontillado is itself one of its varieties.

During which festive season does Montresor meet a drunken Fortunato in The Cask of Amontillado?

Carnival gives Montresor perfect cover: Fortunato is already drunk and in costume, and the servants have slipped away to join the fun. The house stands empty when the two men arrive.

What costume has the drunken Fortunato chosen for the festival in The Cask of Amontillado?

A court jester's motley is what Fortunato has on, a tight striped suit and a pointed cap. Poe sends the self-styled expert to his death dressed, quite literally, as a fool.

The Montresor arms in The Cask of Amontillado show a gold foot crushing which heel-biting creature?

A serpent sinks its fangs into the very foot that crushes it. The image reads two ways: Montresor as the foot stamping out an offender, or as the biter striking back at the man who trod on him.

Asked for a secret sign in The Cask of Amontillado, which tool does Montresor pull from his cloak?

A trowel is no secret sign at all: it is the tool Montresor will use minutes later to seal his victim in. Fortunato recoils a few paces, then insists they press on to the wine.

What are Fortunato's last words in The Cask of Amontillado, which Montresor repeats back to him?

"For the love of God, Montresor!" is the victim's last desperate plea. "Yes," Montresor answers, "for the love of God!", then calls his name twice and gets no reply.

When his victim toasts the buried dead in The Cask of Amontillado, what does Montresor drink to?

Fortunato's long life is the toast, offered by the one man who knows how short it will be. Poe fills the walk with such double meanings: Montresor also calls him "a man to be missed".

How long has Fortunato's tomb lain undisturbed when Montresor narrates The Cask of Amontillado?

Fifty years have passed, which turns the whole story into an old man's confession. Poe never reveals who is listening, only that it is someone who knows "the nature of my soul".

What is the meaning of "In pace requiescat", the Latin that ends The Cask of Amontillado?

"May he rest in peace" sounds like a blessing, yet it comes from the man who sealed him in. It is the tale's final line, and it never settles whether Montresor is gloating or uneasy.

In The Cask of Amontillado, Fortunato tests Montresor with the secret gesture of which brotherhood?

The Freemasons are the brotherhood, and Montresor does not know their sign. When he insists he is a mason too, Fortunato scoffs "You? Impossible!" and demands proof.

Once Fortunato enters the niche in The Cask of Amontillado, how does Montresor stop him leaving?

Montresor chains him to the rock in seconds, with a short chain and padlock already fixed to the granite. Fortunato is too astounded to resist, and still asks after the Amontillado.

In The Cask of Amontillado, which ailment of Fortunato's does Montresor use to urge turning back?

A bad cough racks Fortunato in the cold vaults, yet each time Montresor urges him home he insists on going deeper. He even says it will not kill him, and Montresor agrees: "True — true."

Near the end of The Cask of Amontillado, a sobered Fortunato laughs and calls his ordeal what?

A practical joke is the way out he offers Montresor, something to laugh about later over wine at the palazzo. Montresor merely echoes his words, then forces the last stone into place.

In The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor drops a torch into the silent tomb and hears only what?

Jingling bells from the cap of Fortunato's costume are the only answer Montresor ever gets. They had rung all through the walk down, which makes the last faint sound far more chilling.

The Cask of Amontillado opens with Montresor bearing a thousand injuries until Fortunato ventures upon what?

Insult is the only motive Montresor ever gives, and he never says what it was. Poe leaves it so vague that some commentators conclude the narrator is simply insane.

Which rival wine taster does Montresor threaten to consult instead in The Cask of Amontillado?

Luchesi never appears, yet his name does the work: each mention makes Fortunato more determined to prove himself the better judge. Fortunato finally dismisses him as "an ignoramus".

How does Montresor make sure his servants leave the house empty in The Cask of Amontillado?

Ordering them to stay in was the trick: Montresor said he would be away until morning and forbade them to stir from the house. He knew they would all vanish the moment his back was turned.

What does Montresor's family motto in The Cask of Amontillado, "Nemo me impune lacessit", mean?

"No one provokes me with impunity" is a warning Fortunato hears and cheerfully ignores, answering only "Good!". Poe may have lifted the Latin from James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans.

Which white mineral hangs "like moss" on the vault walls in The Cask of Amontillado?

Nitre is potassium nitrate, a soft white mineral found in caves, and here it lets Montresor play the worried host. He keeps pointing it out, urging Fortunato to turn back, and is refused every time.

Which French wine does Montresor serve first in The Cask of Amontillado, breaking the bottle's neck?

Medoc, from the vineyards north-west of Bordeaux, is offered as a defence against the chill of the vaults. Its real job is to keep Fortunato drunk enough to go on walking.

The remains lining Montresor's crypt in The Cask of Amontillado recall the catacombs of which city?

Paris is Poe's comparison, a touch of the real world in a city he never names. Its catacombs hold the remains of more than six million people, moved from overflowing cemeteries.

Where had Montresor hidden the stone and mortar he uses in The Cask of Amontillado?

Under a pile of bones is where the supplies were waiting, proof that the crime was planned well ahead. Afterwards Montresor stacks the same remains back against the fresh wall to hide it.

When his heart grows sick at the end of The Cask of Amontillado, what does Montresor blame?

The damp air gets the blame: Montresor feels a sickness of heart and at once dismisses it. He then hurries to force the last stone into place and plaster it up.

Before the walk to his palazzo in The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor dons a cloak and what else?

A black silk mask covers Montresor's face for the walk home, a fitting disguise for a man who wants to punish without being caught. The cloak, a roquelaire, hides something he needs later.

Which measure of wine, about 130 gallons, does Montresor say he bought in The Cask of Amontillado?

A pipe was a huge barrel, which is why Fortunato cries "Impossible!" at the idea of so much Amontillado turning up in mid-festival. Montresor adds that he paid in full before having it tasted.

Which word names Fortunato's fate in The Cask of Amontillado, being walled up alive?

Immurement and mural both come from murus, the Latin for wall. Unlike ordinary live burial, where the air soon runs out, a walled-in victim is left to die slowly of thirst or hunger.

The Cask of Amontillado has been read as a dark tale in support of which 19th-century cause?

Temperance was the cause of the Washingtonians, reformed drinkers who tried to scare people off alcohol. Poe may have promised to join them in 1843 after a drinking bout.

Which country's motto, once seen on pound coins, do the Montresors use in The Cask of Amontillado?

Scotland has long used the line, which is also the motto of its Order of the Thistle. Poe had a link of his own: John Allan, the merchant who raised him, was born in Ayrshire.

Which magazine, then America's most popular periodical, first printed The Cask of Amontillado?

Godey's Lady's Book, a Philadelphia monthly of poetry, articles and engravings, ran the tale in November 1846. Its editor was Sarah Josepha Hale, author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

Scholars read The Cask of Amontillado as Poe's reply to which rival, whose novel 1844 mocked him as a drunkard?

Thomas Dunn English and Poe had traded caricatures in print, and Poe was suing a New York paper for libel over one attack. He won the case the following year.

Legend ties The Cask of Amontillado to Fort Independence, where Poe once soldiered, in which city?

Boston is also where Poe was born, and the fort guards its harbour from Castle Island. Soldiers there supposedly walled up an officer who had killed a popular comrade, though the real man lived until 1846.

Roger Corman's Tales of Terror merges The Cask of Amontillado with which Poe tale of a hidden body?

The Black Cat supplied what Poe's original leaves out, a clear motive: in the film the wine taster is having an affair with Montresor's wife. Corman played the grim tale largely for laughs.

Which writer reworked The Cask of Amontillado as Dolan's Cadillac, burying a gangster in his car?

Stephen King has a Las Vegas schoolteacher bury alive the crime boss who had his wife killed. Dolan even begs with a twist on Fortunato's last plea, swapping in his killer's name.

Whose Netflix series names a drug company after the man walled up in The Cask of Amontillado?

Mike Flanagan called the firm Fortunato Pharmaceuticals in The Fall of the House of Usher. Its chief executive, Rufus Griswold, is walled up by the Usher siblings, just as in Poe's tale.

After the first bottle in The Cask of Amontillado, which wine does Fortunato drain in one breath?

De Grâve, a Bordeaux wine, goes down in a single gulp, a hint that Fortunato is more drunkard than connoisseur. He then flings the empty bottle into the air.

Startled by cries from the niche in The Cask of Amontillado, which weapon does Montresor unsheathe?

A rapier is what he draws, groping about the recess with it in a rare moment of fear. Then he touches the solid stone of the vault, feels reassured, and goes back to work.

Which author restaged the ending of The Cask of Amontillado on Mars in the story Usher II?

Ray Bradbury has a book lover named Stendahl build Poe's House of Usher on Mars. Garrett, the official who comes to tear it down, is treated exactly as Fortunato was.

As drops trickle down the vaults in The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor says they stand below what?

The river's bed lies above them, Montresor says, deep among the stacked skeletons. It shows how far beneath the city the two have come, and why no cry for help will ever be heard.

Montresor meets Fortunato at dusk in The Cask of Amontillado; when is the wall nearly done?

By midnight ten tiers of stone are laid and the last is nearly done. Only then does a low laugh from the niche make the hairs rise on Montresor's head.