The Facts in the Case of M Valdemar is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe about a mesmerist who puts a man in a suspended hypnotic state at the moment of death An example of a tale of suspense and horror it is also to a certain degree a hoax as it was published without claiming to be fictional and many at the time of publication 1845 took it to be a factual account Poe toyed with this for a while before admitting it was a work of pu...