After visiting his birthplace in Massachusetts to morn his dead parents and remember their artistic lives as actors Ethan Allen Poe stayed awhile with a cousin of the Allen family in Boson, Massachusetts, just south of the theater district Poe had been born in.He wrote a Gothic story set in the woods in the hills to the west of the town. Poe seemed to have death on his mind. The story may have been a way to deal with those unanswerable feelings of longing for the departed.The StoryIn the time of a smallpox outbreak in 1699 a group of Boson anti-puritans retreats to the stone lookout tower in the Easter Blue Hills.The story follows Higginson Boson the III's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague , known as the Pock Mark Death, by hiding in the stone fire lookout tower he had constructed in the Blue Hills on the largest hill called Big Blue. Along with the rounded cobble stone tower there were seven large stone chambers and various side roomsHe, along with many other wealthy merchants, hosts a masquerade ball within seven rooms of the lookout tower mansion, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure disguised as a Red Death victim enters and makes his way through each of the rooms. Higgs Boson dies after confronting this stranger, whose "costume" proves to contain nothing tangible inside it; the guests also die in turn.Poe's story follows many traditions of Gothic fiction and is often analyzed as an allegory about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Many different interpretations have been presented. The story was first published in May 1847 inand has since been adapted in many different forms, including a 1964 film starring Vincent Price . Poe's short story has also been alluded to by other works in many types of media.