"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, then included in the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840.

[2] The story begins with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his childhood friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country, complaining of an illness and asking for his help.

Roderick sings "The Haunted Palace", then tells the narrator that he believes the house he lives in to be alive, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it.

Fearing that her body will be exhumed for medical study, Roderick insists that she be entombed for two weeks in the family tomb located in the house before being permanently buried.

Roderick is convinced of his impending demise and the narrator is gradually drawn into this belief after being brought forth to witness the horrors and hauntings of the House of Usher.

He is described by the narrator as having:gray-white skin; eyes large and full of light; lips not bright in color, but of a beautiful shape; a well-shaped nose; hair of great softness — a face that was not easy to forget.

[3] According to Terry W. Thompson, Roderick meticulously plans for Madeline's burial to prevent "resurrection men" from stealing his beloved sister's corpse for dissection, study, or experimentation as was common in the 18th and 19th centuries for medical schools and physicians in need of cadavers.

[6] Roderick and Madeline are twins and the two share an incommunicable connection that critics conclude may be either incestuous or metaphysical,[7] as two individuals in an extra-sensory relationship embodying a single entity.

His mental health deteriorates faster as he begins to hear Madeline's attempts to escape the underground vault she was buried in, and he eventually meets his death out of fear in a manner similar to the House of Usher's cracking and sinking.

[12] Another German author, Heinrich Clauren's, 1812 story "Das Raubschloß", as translated into English by Joseph Hardman and published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1828 as "The Robber's Tower", may have served as an inspiration, according to Arno Schmidt and Thomas Hansen.

[13] As well as its sharing common elements, such as a young woman with a fear of premature burial interred in a sepulcher directly beneath the protagonist's chamber, stringed instruments, and the living twin of the buried girl, Diane Hoeveler identifies textual evidence of Poe's use of the story, and concludes that the inclusion of Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae (Vigils for the Dead according to the Use of the Church of Mainz) is drawn from the use of a similarly obscure book in "The Robber's Tower".

[16] The presence of a capacious, disintegrating house symbolizing the destruction of the human body continues to be a characteristic element in Poe's later work.

[15] "The Fall of the House of Usher" shows Poe's ability to create an emotional tone in his work, specifically emphasizing feelings of fear, impending doom, and guilt.

[citation needed] The House of Usher, itself doubly referring both to the actual structure and the family, plays a significant role in the story.

Lovecraft, in 'Supernatural Horror', solved a problem in the interpretation of Poe" by arguing that "Roderick Usher, his sister Madeline, and the house all shared one common soul".

[20] The plot of this tale has prompted many critics to analyze it as a description of the human psyche, comparing, for instance, the House to the unconscious, and its central crack to a split personality.

[1] The gloomy sensation occasioned by the dreary landscape around the Usher mansion is compared by the narrator to the sickness caused by the withdrawal symptoms of an opiate-addict.

"[22] While there are no direct statements supporting their conclusions, scholars have demonstrated the language deployed by Roderick to describe his sister as full of hints of the possible incestuous relationship between the twins.

Several notable examples include: Along with "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Black Cat", and "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Fall of the House of Usher" is considered among Poe's more famous works of prose.

[28] Washington Irving explained to Poe in a letter dated November 6, 1839: "You have been too anxious to present your pictures vividly to the eye, or too distrustful of your effect, and had laid on too much colouring.

[29] John McAleer maintained that Herman Melville's idea for "objectifying Ahab's flawed character" in Moby-Dick came from the "evocative force" of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher".

In 1950, a British film version of The Fall of the House of Usher was produced starring Gwen Watford, Kay Tendeter and Irving Steen.

In 1956, NBC Matinee Theater on US television broadcast The Fall of the House of Usher starring Marshall Thompson and Tom Tryon for episode 197.

[33] It was directed by Daniele D'Anza, with Roderick Usher played by Philippe Leroy; music was composed by pop band Pooh.

Filmed in 1979 but not released until 1982,[34] American television network NBC broadcast the story, directed by James L. Conway and starring Martin Landau, Robert Hays, Ray Walston and Charlene Tilton.

[35] Czech director Jan Švankmajer adapted the story into the 1980 short film Zánik domu Usherů, which made use of black and white photography and stop-motion techniques but no actors on screen at any moment.

[37][38] Intrepid Pictures created an eight-episode limited series titled The Fall of the House of Usher for Netflix that is based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

The lyrics of Alan Hull's song "Lady Eleanor", a 1971 hit single for British folk rock band Lindisfarne, were inspired by "The Fall of the House of Usher" and other Poe works.

[40] "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a five-part instrumental suite on the 1976 album Tales of Mystery and Imagination by The Alan Parsons Project.

[41] The Long Beach Opera mounted a version of this work in February 2013 at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, Los Angeles.