Emily Colette Wilkinson recently received her PhD from Stanford University in British literature. She is a writer for the literature blog The Millions and has also written book reviews for the Washington Times.
In 1827, Thomas de Quincey suggested that murder was becoming a new medium for the artist: “People begin to see,” he wrote, “that something more goes into the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed, a knife...