Product Description

'For if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination' Thomas De Quincey's three essays 'On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts' centre on the notorious career of the murderer John Williams, who in 1811 brutally killed seven people in London's East End. De Quincey's response to Williams's attacks turns morality on its head, celebrating and coolly dissecting the art of murder and its perfections. Ranging from gruesomely vivid reportage and brilliantly funny satiric high jinks to penetrating literary and aesthetic criticism, the essays had a remarkable impact on crime, terror, and detective fiction, as well as on the rise of nineteenth-century decadence. The volume also contains De Quincey's best-known piece of literary criticism, 'On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth', and his finest tale of terror, 'The Avenger', a disturbing exploration of violence, vigilantism, and religious persecution.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #105098 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
An edition like this of De Quincey's most memorable essays was badly needed. Robert Morrison as editor does a good job indeed! (Dr. Antonio Ballesteros-González, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha )

About the Author
Robert Morrison is co-editor of the multi-volume The Works of Thomas De Quincey and editor of Volume Three of The Selected Works of Leigh Hunt.

Customer Reviews

Dream of a perfect crime
The too long out-of-print On Murder has at last been published in a well-edited and affordable format by OUP. De Quincey's fame is often attached to "Confessions of an Opium Eater" which while having moments of brilliance is distinctly overrated. "On Murder" is both a gem of decadance and a simple parody of the self important and self obsessed writing found in the magazines of the epoch; a medium in which the so called intellectuals of the time would seek to parry one another.
Read it for the fun and the frivolity of a darker, dirtier, more dangerous London.