The protagonist of this story by Edgar Allen Poe, an anti-hero if there ever was one, succumbs to the influence of demon rum, to his profound ruination. Narrated by Lee Purcell, the story was first published in The Saturday Evening Post on August 19, 1843. The black cat in the tale, Pluto, may have been inspired by Poe’s own black cat, of whom Poe wrote about in an article:
The writer of this article is the owner of one of the most remarkable black cats in the world—and this is saying much; for it will be remembered that black cats are all of them witches.
The story has been adapted widely in films, on stage, as a comic strip, and as an episode in a television series, as recounted in this Wikipedia article.