<P> The disease may have been inspired by tuberculosis (or consumption, as it was known then), since Poe's wife Virginia was suffering from the disease at the time the story was written . Like the character Prince Prospero, Poe tried to ignore the fatality of the disease . Poe's mother Eliza, brother William, and foster mother Frances had also died of tuberculosis . Alternatively, the Red Death may refer to cholera; Poe would have witnessed an epidemic of cholera in Baltimore, Maryland in 1831 . Others have suggested the pandemic is actually Bubonic plague or the Black death, emphasized by the climax of the story featuring the "Red" Death in the "black" room . One writer likens the description to that of a viral hemorrhagic fever or necrotizing fasciitis . It has also been suggested that the Red Death is not a disease or sickness at all but a weakness (like "original sin") that is shared by all of humankind inherently . </P> <P> Poe first published the story in the May 1842 edition of Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine as "The Mask of the Red Death", with the tagline "A Fantasy". This first publication earned him $12 . A revised version was published in the July 19, 1845 edition of the Broadway Journal under the now - standard title "The Masque of the Red Death ." The original title emphasized the figure at the end of the story; the new title puts emphasis on the masquerade ball . </P> <Ul> <Li> Basil Rathbone read the entire short story in his Caedmon LP recording The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (early 1960s). Other audiobook recordings have featured Christopher Lee, Hurd Hatfield, Martin Donegan and Gabriel Byrne as readers . </Li> <Li> The story was adapted by George Lowther for a broadcast on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater (January 10, 1975), starring Karl Swenson and Staats Cotsworth . </Li> <Li> A radio reading was performed by Winifred Phillips, with music she composed . The program was produced by Winnie Waldron as part of National Public Radio's Tales by American Masters series . </Li> <Li> Eros Ramazzotti's song "Lettera al futuro" ("Letter to the future"), from his 1996 album Dove c'è musica, retells the main events of the story in a simplified form, without mentioning any specific characters or names but vaguely connecting the plague mentioned in the story to AIDS, and concludes with the singer's hope, addressed to an imaginary unborn child, that such events will not happen any longer in the future . </Li> </Ul> <Li> Basil Rathbone read the entire short story in his Caedmon LP recording The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (early 1960s). Other audiobook recordings have featured Christopher Lee, Hurd Hatfield, Martin Donegan and Gabriel Byrne as readers . </Li>

Pictures of the masque of the red death