I am trying to remember the name of the work Poe did about a man who married a lovely lady with a ribbon around her neck. Her only request is that he never remove the ribbon. Then one night he does and she loses her head. Does anyone remember this and what it's called??

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2004

Answers

This sounds familiar mainly since different versions of this gimmick keep resurfacing in pulp horror. I don't think it is Poe and not in any story of his. Only in black humor would he use such a device. "Berenice" in fact is more gruesome to my mind whereas this one is plain silly and unrealistic. One site lists it as a "shaggy dog" urban legend type story.

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2004

The work you so clearly remember is actually Washington Irving's 'gothic' story "The Adventure of the German Student" included in his 1824 "Tales of a Traveller" -- a 'collection' Poe seems to have deeply appreciated from the beginning (cfr., for example, several probable influences upon some of his own "Tales of the Folio Club") to the end of his literary carreer (cfr., for example, the allusion in his 1847 new review of Hawthorne's "Tales" and "Mosses", if I myself remember well). Yours sincerely, Raven's Shade (Belgium).

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2004