I do not even know where to start...
No matter how trite it sounds (but in this case it wasn’t read), as I’m sure that many mentioned it, I’ll write that I love everything related to the Victorian era. What did I like this time ..? Yes, most likely, comfort and riddles. How? - you ask. And easy! I like street lamps that lit up the streets of those times, paving stones, thanks to which the sound of hoofs was heard every now and then. So simple? “Yes, that’s so simple.” Who doesn’t like the quality photographs taken on professional SLR cameras in the streets of London, wet streets, benches, parks, with the lighting of all the same lights? I am sure when you look at such pictures, it’s comfort that gives you pleasure. Perhaps this is stupid, because now the streets of many cities are being improved in the British manner. They install similar lanterns in parks, lay mosaic tiles similar to paving stones. As for corrupt women, opium lovers, and horrific murders, things are much more complicated. The thought of this does not upset much, if I may say so, the comfort that I feel so good, but there is nothing to be done, it is such a harsh truth. I forgave the addiction to opium even to my favorite character - detective Sherlock Holmes for all those moments that Conan Doyle gave me and allowed me to survive with this most popular hero. I also like that era because of the mysteries, as I mentioned above. Yes, yes, that same Ripper Jack and all derivatives of this nickname. Who is not attracted to riddles, the answer to which no one suggests to the end?
This novel is not about Jack, but about an even more terrible character who did not flinch even when killing the little ones wrapped in swaddling clothes. You see, I didn’t think that at my age any other book would make me feel a chill on my back and jerk. My hands were trembling when I felt how easily HE commits these crimes. In the future, the author tells the fate of almost every already picturesquely described heroes and what is most terrible, even with a killer you are imbued with understanding. Here I really went nuts! :)
I think this novel is a duel. A duel of two people - the author of the world famous confession about addiction to opium and a killer maniac. Each of them is sinful, but each of them is worthy of respect. Both want to warn humanity against pernicious attacks (external: political and internal: struggle with consciousness). Both have their own methods. Someone will say that the methods are terrible, cruel, inhuman and, in principle, I agree with this, but at the same time I agree with the heroes. After killing innocent kids, I thought I wouldn’t forgive the killer for anything! And so it happened, but to understand - I understood it. A good deed, which bordered on a fine line with inhumanity, was worth following the principles and now you instantly stumbled and fly into the abyss! I do not know how else to describe my position. Yes, the anti-hero is a scoundrel, an animal! But he didn’t want what he achieved. Unfortunately, I’m not going to say it for joy. I am an egoist to turn a blind eye to such crimes, but for what it was done ... One person cannot fix it.
I especially liked the moment when De Quincy repaid the killer (so as not to spoil it!) With the same coin, asking for help from the old libertines. It was a very powerful scene. Thomas De Quincy, it turned out, is no less cruel.
Well, in conclusion, briefly about the main thing! The book is fantastic and after the Radiance of Stephen King went off with a bang. It is easy to read, you even catch yourself thinking that you do not want to come off in order to boil a seagull. Five points! For me, this is the best (of the new products read this year) book.

David Morrell with the Fine Art of Death novel for download in fb2 format.

In 1811, London was shocked by the killings on Ratcliff Highway, where two families were brutally massacred for a week. Almost half a century later, Thomas De Quincy returned to the city, who vividly described this tragedy in his essay “Murder as One of the Fine Arts”.
A few days after his arrival, another family befalls the same horrible death. One gets the impression that someone was inspired by the book and uses it as a guide to action. Suspicion falls on De Quincy himself. With the help of his daughter Emily and two Scotland Yard detectives, he needs to find out the truth before he spills even more blood, and stop the killer, who cruelly rivals Jack the Ripper himself.

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To date, the Internet posted a large number of electronic literature. The publication The Fine Art of Death is dated 2014, belongs to the genre "Detective" in the series "The Big Book" and is published by the ABC publishing house. Perhaps the book has not yet entered the Russian market or has not appeared in electronic format. Do not get upset: just wait and it will certainly appear on UnitLib in fb2 format, but for now you can download and read other books online. Read and enjoy cognitive literature with us. Free download in formats (fb2, epub, txt, pdf) allows you to download books directly to an e-book. Remember, if you really liked the novel, save it to your wall in social networklet your friends see him too!

Robert Morrison and Grevel Lindop, who guided my journey into the world of Thomas De Quincy

MURDER AS A FINE ART

by David Morrell

Copyright © 2013 by Morrell Enterprises, Inc.

This edition published by arrangement with Little, Brown, and Company, New York, New York, USA

All rights reserved

© T. Matyukhin, translation, 2014

© LLC "Publishing Group" Alphabet-Atticus "", 2014

® Publishing house ABC

© The electronic version of the book was prepared by LitRes (www.litres.ru)

At first glance it seems surprising that England, the mid-Victorian era, famous for its stiffness, literally went crazy with the new genre of fiction - a detective novel. Wilkie Collins’s novel Woman in White, which was released in 1860, laid the foundation for what Victorian critics defined as "detective mania." It turned out to be akin to a “virus spreading in all directions,” and it satisfied “hidden, unhealthy desires.”

The roots of the new genre lie in the Gothic novels of the previous century, with the only difference being that the authors of the detectives do not place their heroes in ancient gloomy castles, but in completely modern houses of familiar Victorian England. Darkness is not of supernatural origin. She nests in the hearts of seemingly respectable citizens whose personal life is full of terrifying secrets. Madness, incest, violence, blackmail, infanticide, arson, drug addiction, poisoning, sadomasochism and necrophilia - this is not a complete list of "skeletons in the closet", which, according to the authors, were hidden behind an external Victorian gloss.

Upon closer examination, it turns out that the craze for a new genre, bringing out God's dark secrets, was a natural reaction to the general secrecy characteristic of that time. It is hard to imagine to what extent the English of the middle and upper classes separated their private life from the public and how carefully they concealed the true feelings from outsiders. The generally accepted practice of keeping windows shutters very well reflects the attitude of the British Victorians towards their home and private life: this is a sacred territory from which you can look outside, but it is forbidden to look into it. Every house was replete with secrets, their presence was taken for granted and did not concern any of the outsiders.

The scandalous, Thomas De Quincy, who does not fit into his era, whose theory of the supernatural for seventy years anticipated Freud’s teachings, spoke of universal restraint and the habit of hiding one’s personal life: “At least I’m sure: the mind is deprived of the ability to forget; thousands random events can and will create a veil between our consciousness and secret letters of memory, and thousands of the same events, in turn, can tear that veil, but, one way or another, those letters are eternal; they are like stars that seem to be hiding in front of the ordinary light of the day, but we know that the light is just a cover cast over the night lights, and they wait to appear again until the day that overshadows them is hidden.

De Quincy became famous when he committed an act, hitherto unbelievable: flaunted his personal life in the famous bestselling book “Confession of an Englishman Who Used Opium”. William Burroughs later described this work as “the first and still best book about drug addiction. ”

De Quincy’s eerie prose, in particular the essay “Murder as One of the Fine Arts,” allows him to be called the founder of the detective genre. This work, shocking the unprepared reader, sheds light on the famous murders on Ratcliffe Highway, which in 1811 terrified the population of London and all of England. It seems tempting to compare the effect produced by these crimes with the fear that engulfed the London East End at the end of the nineteenth century, in 1888, when Jack the Ripper made several sensational murders. It turns out that the panic that followed the events on Ratcliffe Highway was much larger. The reason is that these brutal massacres were the first of their kind, information about which spread rapidly throughout the country, all due to the growing importance of newspapers (there were fifty-two in London alone in 1811) and the recently improved mail delivery system for mail carriages that traveled all over England with constant speed ten miles an hour.

In addition, all those killed by the Ripper were prostitutes, while the victims of the Ratcliff Highway killings were business people and their families. Only the "night butterflies" were afraid of the Jack the Ripper, and literally every resident of London had reasons to fear the murderer of 1811. Details of how the perpetrator cracked down on his victims can be found in the first chapter of this story. To some they may seem shocking, disgusting, but everything is based on historical evidence.

Much time has passed since we read Thomas De Quincy, but the bloody horror he described is still fresh in memory and has not lost its monstrous power. And to this day, every night makes us tremble again and again from a paralyzing will and incredibly real fear and brings to life the nightmares to which we are doomed by the fact that we got acquainted with the work of De Quincy.

British Quarterly Review, 1863

... To create a truly beautiful murder requires more than two dumbasses - the murderer and the killer himself, and in addition to them a knife, a wallet and a dark alley. Composition, gentlemen, groupings of people, the play of chiaroscuro, poetry, feeling - these are what are now considered to be necessary conditions for the successful implementation of such an idea. Like Aeschylus or Milton in poetry, like Michelangelo in painting, the great killer brings his art to the limits of grandiose grandeur.

Thomas De Quincy. Murder as one of the fine arts

London, 1854

They say that Titian, Rubens and van Dyck always painted, being in full dress. Before perpetuating their visions on canvas, they took a bath and thus symbolically cleared the consciousness of everything outside. Then put on better clothes, the most beautiful wigs, and in one case there was also a sword with a hilt strewn with diamonds.

The “Artist of Death” was prepared in a similar way. He put on his evening suit and sat for two hours, staring at the wall, concentrating. When dusk fell on the city and it became dark in a room with a curtained window, he lit an oil lamp and began to put his analogues of brushes, paints and canvases into a black leather bag. There was also a wig (remember Rubens) - yellow, not at all similar in color to his light brown hair. He also took with him the same color of a false beard. Ten years ago, a bearded man would attract everyone's attention, but the latest trends in fashion, on the contrary, would have forced others to turn around when they saw a man with a clean-shaven chin. Among other items, he placed in the bag a heavy hammer of a ship's carpenter - an old one, with the letters J. R. scratched on the shock part. Instead of a sword encrusted with diamonds, which one of the artists of the past grabbed onto a belt while working, our “artist” put a razor with an ivory handle in his pocket.

He left his den, walked several blocks to a busy intersection to catch a cab. Two minutes later, a free crew stopped nearby; the charioteer proudly towered over his brilliant top. The “Artist of Death” was not at all worried that everyone was stuck on this dank December evening in full view. At the moment, he even wanted to be seen; however, this would be difficult - fog was rapidly approaching the city from the Thames, surrounding gas lanterns with a luminous halo.

David morrell

The Fine Art of Death

Robert Morrison and Grevel Lindop, who guided my journey into the world of Thomas De Quincy.

Introduction

At first glance it seems surprising that England, the mid-Victorian era, famous for its stiffness, literally went crazy with the new genre of fiction - a detective novel. Released in 1860 by Wilkie Collins’s novel, “Woman in White,” laid the foundation for what Victorian critics defined as “detective mania.” It turned out to be akin to a “virus spreading in all directions,” and it satisfied “hidden, unhealthy desires.”

The roots of the new genre lie in the Gothic novels of the previous century, with the only difference being that the authors of the detectives do not place their heroes in ancient gloomy castles, but in completely modern houses of familiar Victorian England. Darkness is not of supernatural origin. She nests in the hearts of seemingly respectable citizens whose personal life is full of terrifying secrets. Madness, incest, violence, blackmail, infanticide, arson, drug addiction, poisoning, sadomasochism and necrophilia - this is not a complete list of "skeletons in the closet", which, according to the authors, were hidden behind an external Victorian gloss.

Upon closer examination, it turns out that the craze for a new genre, bringing out God's dark secrets, was a natural reaction to the general secrecy characteristic of that time. It is hard to imagine to what extent the English of the middle and upper classes separated their private life from the public and how carefully they concealed the true feelings from outsiders. The generally accepted practice of keeping windows shutters very well reflects the attitude of the British Victorians towards their home and private life: this is a sacred territory from which you can look outside, but it is forbidden to look into it. Every house was replete with secrets, their presence was taken for granted and did not concern any of the outsiders.

The scandalous, Thomas De Quincy, who does not fit into his era, whose theory of the supernatural for seventy years anticipated Freud’s teachings, spoke of universal restraint and the habit of hiding one’s personal life: “At least I’m sure: the mind is deprived of the ability to forget; thousands of random events can and will create a veil between our minds and secret letters of memory, and thousands of the same events, in turn, can tear that veil, but, one way or another, those letters are eternal; they are like stars that seem to be hiding in front of the ordinary light of the day, but we know that the light is just a cover cast over the night lights, and they wait to appear again until the day that overshadows them is hidden. ”

De Quincy became famous when he committed an act, hitherto unbelievable: he flaunted his personal life in the famous bestselling book “Confession of an Englishman Who Used Opium”. William Burroughs later described this work as "the first and still the best book on drug addiction."

De Quincy’s eerie prose, in particular the essay “Murder as One of the Fine Arts,” allows him to be called the founder of the detective genre. This work, shocking the unprepared reader, sheds light on the famous murders on Ratcliffe Highway, which in 1811 terrified the population of London and all of England. It seems tempting to compare the effect produced by these crimes with the fear that engulfed the London East End at the end of the nineteenth century, in 1888, when Jack the Ripper made several sensational murders. It turns out that the panic that followed the events on Ratcliffe Highway was much larger. The reason is that these brutal massacres were the first of their kind, information about which spread rapidly throughout the country, all due to the growing importance of newspapers (there were fifty-two in London alone in 1811) and the recently improved mail delivery system for mail carriages that traveled all over England at a constant speed of ten miles per hour.

In addition, all those killed by the Ripper were prostitutes, while the victims of the Ratcliff Highway killings were business people and their families. Only the "night butterflies" were afraid of the Jack the Ripper, and literally every resident of London had reasons to fear the murderer of 1811. Details of how the perpetrator cracked down on his victims can be found in the first chapter of this story. To some they may seem shocking, disgusting, but everything is based on historical evidence.