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On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts
Paperback
ISBN13: 9781646795574
Publisher: Cosimo Classics
Published: Oct 3 1827
Pages: 40
Weight: 0.12
Height: 0.10 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed-a knife-a purse-and a dark lane...
-Thomas De Quincy
In On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts (1827), Thomas De Quincy used a series of murders, allegedly committed in London in 1811 by John Williams, as the centerpiece of a satirical essay that whimsically discusses the aesthetics of murder. In this commentary, De Quincy uses black humor to make a tongue-in-cheek statement about the impact of crime. His writing had a remarkable impact on crime, terror, and detective fiction and was praised by critics like G. K. Chesterton and George Orwell.
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