On Murder (Oxford World's Classics)

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ISBN 0–19–280566–5    978–0–19–280566–9

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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

THOMAS DE QUINCEY

On Murder

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
ROBERT MORRISON

OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

ON MURDER

THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785–1859) was born in Manchester to a prosperous linen merchant. As a young boy he read widely and acquired a reputation as a brilliant classicist. At 17 he ran away from Manchester Grammar School and spent five harrowing months penniless and hungry on the streets of London. Reconciled with his family, he entered Oxford University in 1803, but left five years later without taking his degree and moved to the English Lake District to be near his two literary idols, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In 1813 he became dependent on opium, a drug he began experimenting with during his days at Oxford, and over the next few years he slid deeper into debt and addiction. His most famous work, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, appeared in the London Magazine in 1821, and launched his career as a contributor to the leading magazines of the day, where he wrote on a wide variety of subjects, including politics, literature, history, philosophy, and economics. In 1823 he published his most famous piece of literary criticism, ‘On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth’, in which he explored the representation and psychology of violence. Four years later in Blackwood’s Magazine he published his brilliant exercise in black humour, ‘On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts’, which he followed with a ‘Second Paper On Murder’ in 1839 and a ‘Postscript’ in 1854. De Quincey also wrote terror fiction, and in 1838 produced ‘The Avenger’, his most disturbing treatment of retribution and racial violence. De Quincey spent much of his life battling poverty, debt, and addiction, but his work was widely admired, and British and American editions of his writings began to appear in the 1850s. He died in Edinburgh on 8 December 1859.

ROBERT MORRISON is Professor of English literature at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. He has edited writings by Leigh Hunt, Richard Woodhouse, and Jane Austen. With Chris Baldick, he produced editions of The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre and Tales of Terror from Blackwood’s Magazine for Oxford World’s Classics.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Note on the Text

Select Bibliography

A Chronology of Thomas De Quincey

ON MURDER

On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth

On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

The Avenger

Second Paper on Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

Postscript [to On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts]

Appendixes. Manuscript Writings

A. Peter Anthony Fonk

B. To the Editor of Blackwood’s Magazine

C. A New Paper on Murder as a Fine Art

Explanatory Notes

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LIKE all critics of De Quincey, I am deeply indebted to Grevel Lindop, who developed the idea for this volume, and who has repeatedly challenged and broadened my understanding of De Quincey. I would also like to thank Judith Luna for her enthusiasm and support. For expertise and advice of all kinds, I am grateful to Chris Baldick, Bonnie Brooks, Iain Brown, Jeff Cowton, Michael Cummings, Jeff Eckert, Robert Freeman, Louis Godbout, Clifford Jackman, Heather Jackson, Robin Jackson, Adam Johnstone, Mark Jones, Frank Jordan, Bernard Kavanagh, Larry Krupp, Justin Jaron Lewis, Charles Mahoney, Julian North, Seamus Perry, William Reeve, Christopher Ricks, David Smith, Paul Stanwood, Barry Symonds, Beert Verstraete, Paul Wiens, and Romira Worvill. Special thanks to Brandon Alakas for his hard work, insightful questions, and meticulous scholarship. I am indebted to the staffs of several libraries: the National Library of Scotland; the Dove Cottage Library, Grasmere; and the Countway Library of Medicine, Houghton Library, and Widener Library, Harvard University.