The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar tells the tale of a mesmerist who puts a man in a suspended hypnotic state at the moment of death to see if he can communicate with him after he is dead. While a tale of suspense and horror, it was also, at the time of its publication, a bit of a hoax since it was published without claiming to be fictional, and many took it to be a factual. Poe toyed with this for a while before admitting it was a work of pure fiction