Poe

The 19th. January, this coming Monday, is the 200th. anniversary of the birth of Edgar Alan Poe. I have read some of his gory stories but fail to finish some like "Ligeia". I find his style awkward sometimes. And I often feel he should discard some of his ponderous explanations to give the story more pace.
I was telling a friend some years ago that I had, in my youth, heard a programme on the radio called "The Brains Trust" in which "the brains" (two of whom I recall as Professor Joad and Julian Huxley, the zoo-ologist) were asked what they considered to be the best short story ever written; I think two or maybe three said "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Alan Poe. My friend said he would get the story and read it. When he did he told me he was not at all impressed. Which surprised me because it is a very good short story, maybe not a favourite of mine but a real nasty thriller.
It begins: "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge."
I was at one time intrigued to know what precisely those "injuries" and the "insult" were; we are never told. This gave me an idea: I would write a prequel to the story ending with Fortunato saying to a friend "I can't come with you I'm afraid, I've been invited to a friend's place where he has, he says, a cask of Amontillado......."
But perhaps one of the intrigueing things about the story is the narrator's reluctance to divulge the reason he has for murdering the hapless Fortunato; maybe, like Iago, the reason for his evil actions are never given because there weren't any except a bitter dislike of Othello.
In a later edition of "The Brains Trust" they were asked the same question: what is the greatest short story ever written and the answer - different panel no doubt -was quite different: Kipling's "The Man Born to be King", which I have never liked.