Author: Thomas De Quincey
Series: Penguin Little Black Classics #4
Pages: 56
Format: Paperback
Published: 1827
Publisher: Penguin Classics
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: June 6, 2025
My rating: 
Thoughts
This is a curious little piece — more satire than true crime, more performance than essay. Thomas De Quincey presents a fictional lecture that treats murder as a subject for aesthetic critique, discussing real-life killings with tongue-in-cheek reverence. It’s clever, macabre, and definitely ahead of its time in how it plays with public fascination with violence.
That said, while I appreciated the dark humor and the concept, it didn’t fully land for me. The style is ornate and ironic in that 19th-century way that sometimes feels like it’s trying a bit too hard. And though the satire is sharp, it starts to feel repetitive. I admired the essay more than I enjoyed it — interesting as a historical artifact, but not something I’d rush to revisit. I gave this 3 out of 5 stars.
