Ever want to blame the worst thing you've ever done on someone (or something) else? Edgar Allan Poe believes that you don't have to, and that each time someone does something that is against their best interest they are being visited by the Imp of the Perverse. The narrator of this story, in fact, is visited by this imp after he murders a man via poisonous candle. After thinking he got away with it, he gets a visit from the imp on the streets of his town – and begins to question whether he can hold his secret in any longer.