William Wilson

by Edgar Allan Poe

1925 · 37 pages

short story
aristocracy
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fiction & literature

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About this book

William Wilson was written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1839. William Wilson tells the tale of a man who travels around the world pursued by his ghostly double who tries to keep him from sin and vice. This stands out among Edgar Allen Poe's stories for the fact that it is less Gothic, less gruesome, and less melodramatic than most of his other work. You'll find a different kind of storytelling here than you would in The Tell-Tale Heart or in The Fall of the House of Usher.

Quotes

From Wikiquote

A large mirror,—so at first it seemed to me in my confusion—now stood where none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with a feeble and tottering gait.
It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have fancied that I myself was speaking while he said:
"You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also dead—dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."