On Murder Considered As One Of The Fine Arts

On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts is an essay by Thomas De Quincey. A fictional account of a report made to a gentleman's club regarding the visual appreciation of murder. For friends of satire!

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 coolly dissects the art of murder and its perfections, in a mixture of reportage, black satire, and aesthetic criticism. The volume also contains 'On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth' and De Quincey's finest tale of terror, 'The Avenger'.

An artist of death is stalking Victorian London, recreating earlier masterpieces of murder. Police suspicion falls on the notorious 'opium-eater' Thomas De Quincey, recently returned to the capital, who wrote in detail about the original crimes. Someone is using his essays as inspiration - and he must uncover the truth before the killer completes his work. In MURDER AS A FINE ART, London becomes a battleground between a literary star and a brilliant murderer - whose lives are linked by secrets long buried, but never forgotten.

Take a look at the entertainment landscape today -- the most popular books, movies, and television shows all revolve around murder and its dissection by brilliant investigators. Renowned British essayist Thomas de Quincey stumbled on this truth early in the nineteenth century, prompting him to pen the satirical piece "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts." In it, de Quincey gets to the very heart of our ongoing obsession with the finer points of killing.

De Quincey starts from the real crimes committed by John Williams to construct a single text, on the principles of murder, not in order to regulate the practice but to clarify the trial. It indicates such useful advice as, for example, that "the subject chosen to be assassinated should be in good health. Assassinate, yes, but with art. And with one of the best samples of literature in the English language.

In 1811 John Williams was buried with a stake in his heart. Was he the notorious East End killer or his eighth victim in the bizarre and shocking Ratcliffe Highway Murders? In this vivid and gripping reconstruction P. D. James and police historian T. A. Critchley draw on forensics, public records, newspaper clippings and hitherto unpublished sources, expertly sifting the evidence to shed new light on this infamous Wapping mystery. This true crime novel begins amid the horror of a dark, wintry London in the year 1811. Using elegant historical detection P.D. James and police historian T.A. Critchley piece together new and unpublished sources in an original portrayal of the Ratcliffe Highway Murders. P.D. James, the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley and Children of Men, here explores the mysterious and intense emotions responsible for the unique crime of murder, with authority and sensitivity. Her only work of true crime, this novel uses forensics, unpublished sources and forgotten documents to create a vivid image of early-nineteenth century London and a gripping reconstruction of the Ratcliffe Highway Murders.