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 first published in 1827 in Blackwood's Magazine. The essay is a fictional, satirical account of an address made to a gentleman's club concerning the aesthetic appreciation of murder. It focuses particularly on a series of murders allegedly committed in 1811 by John Williams in the neighborhood of Ratcliffe Highway, London. The essay was enthusiastically received and led to numerous sequels, including "A Second Paper on Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts" in 1839 and a "Postscript" in 1854. These essays have exerted a strong influence on subsequent literary representations of crime and were lauded by such critics as G. K. Chesterton, Wyndham Lewis and George Orwell.

De Quincey also refers to the Williams murders in his On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth.

Famous quotes containing the words murder, considered, fine and/or arts:

    Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out:
    The element of water moistens the earth,
    But blood flies upwards, and bedews the heavens.
    John Webster (1580–1625)

    The pendulum oscillates between these two terms: Suffering—that opens a window on the real and is the main condition of the artistic experience, and Boredom ... that must be considered as the most tolerable because the most durable of human evils.
    Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)

    A lady is smarter than a gentleman, maybe,
    She can sew a fine seam, she can have a baby,
    She can use her intuition instead of her brain,
    But she can’t fold a paper in a crowded train.
    Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)

    On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom of many an ancient philosopher.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)