Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809. His first book was published in 1827. In 1829 Al Aaraaf Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, the second book of Poe was published. Poe became the publisher of The Southern Literary Messenger in 1834 after his lawyer persuaded them to publish some of his stories and make him editor. During this period he began his imprint on American literature. Three of Poe's most famous stories are "The Cask of Amontillado", published in 1846, "The Tell-Tale Heart", published in 1843, and "The Pit and the Pendulum", published in 1842. These three stories like most Poe's stories deal with the deep, dark, psychological side of the human brain. In Poe's short stories “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” Poe uses three common motifs; death, fear or terror and madness. The meaning of death is the permanent end of all vital functions in an organism or part of an organism. Death can take different forms, illness, revenge, hatred, misunderstandings, love. Death is one of the main motifs in all three stories, "The Cask of Amontillado" Montresor kills Fortunato in revenge, and although death is mentioned in "The Pit and the Pendulum" in reality there is no form of death even if it was about to happen. “...I felt like I was reeling – I avoided my--...An outstretched arm caught mine as I fell unconscious into the abyss. It was that of General Lasalle” (The Pit and the Pendulum p. 10). In “The Barrel of Amontillado” where Fortunato was chained to a wall and then walled in a small cave full of bones and then the room was set on fire. “I stuck a flashlight through the remaining opening… into the center of the paper… he begins to think more about how he might die. When he is finally pushed over the edge, which could be considered pushed over the edge of madness, everything comes back to reality when he is grabbed by a general. “The Barrel of Amontillado”, “The Heart Revelation” and “The Pit and the Pendulum” all have common motifs; death, fear or terror and madness. Each story has its own special way of showing the three different motifs. In all and three stories these three reasons were connected in some way. Someone was afraid of something or someone, which made him go crazy, which led him to kill someone from revenge and hatred. Death, fear and madness are all common themes in much of Poe's work. They all make the stories what they are.