"The Cask of Amontillado" is a short story by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the November 1846 issue of Godey's Lady's Book.

The story, set in an unnamed Italian city at carnival time, is about a man taking fatal revenge on a friend who, he believes, has insulted him.

Intrigued by the promise of fine wine and having already drunk enough to impair his judgment, Fortunato follows him into the Montresor family vaults, which also serve as catacombs.

Angry over numerous injuries and an unspecified insult, Montresor resolves to avenge himself without being caught, and also to make sure that Fortunato knows he is responsible.

During the annual Carnival season, Montresor finds a drunken Fortunato and asks for his help in authenticating a recently purchased pipe (about 130 gallons, or 492 litres) of what has been described to him as Amontillado wine.

As he falls silent, Montresor completes the wall and moves a pile of bones to hide it, feeling a sickness of heart that he dismisses as a reaction to the dampness of the catacombs.

"The Cask of Amontillado" was first published in the November 1846 issue of Godey's Lady's Book,[1] which was, at the time, the most popular periodical in America.

The reader is led to assume that much like his exaggerated grievances, the punishment he chooses will represent what he believes is equal justice, and in turn, going to the extreme.

[6] Additional scrutiny into the vague injuries and insults may have to do with a simple matter of Montresor's pride and not any specific words from Fortunato.

This interchanging of fortunes is a suggestion that, since the names Montresor and Fortunato mirror one another, there is a psychological reciprocal identification between victim and executioner.

[6] It is the position of Montresor to view himself as the owner of the righteous foot that is crushing the insolent Fortunato serpent and his "thousand injuries" that progress into insult.

[6] The blind oaf Fortunato has unintentionally stepped upon the snake in the grass – the sneaky and cunning Montresor – who, as a reward for this accidental bruising, sinks his fangs deep into the heel of his offender, forever linking them in a form of mutual existence.

[9] Immurement, a form of imprisonment, usually for life, in which a person is placed within an enclosed space with no exit, is featured in several other works by Poe, including "The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Premature Burial", "The Black Cat", and "Berenice".

An apocryphal legend holds that the inspiration for "The Cask of Amontillado" came from a story Poe had heard at Castle Island (South Boston), Massachusetts, when he was a private stationed at Fort Independence in 1827.

Historically, Massie had been killed in a sword duel on Christmas Day 1817 by Lieutenant Gustavus Drane, following a dispute during a card game.

[16] Poe may have borrowed Montresor's family motto Nemo me impune lacessit from James Fenimore Cooper, who used the line in The Last of the Mohicans (1826).

Poe thought that one of English's writings went a bit too far, and successfully sued the other man's editors at the New York Mirror for libel in 1846.

It included a character named Marmaduke Hammerhead, the famous author of "The Black Crow", who uses phrases like "Nevermore" and "lost Lenore", referring to Poe's poem "The Raven".

In the end, then, it is Poe who "punishes with impunity" by not taking credit for his own literary revenge and by crafting a concise tale (as opposed to a novel) with a singular effect, as he had suggested in his essay "The Philosophy of Composition".

Many periods in Poe's life lack significant biographical details, including what he did after leaving the Southern Literary Messenger in 1837.