Citation

Darby K. Lancet Psychiatry 2015; 2(2): 132.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00026-7

PMID

26359748

Abstract

When George Orwell wrote his essay Decline of the English Murder in 1946, deploring the craven, senseless killings that abounded in post-war Britain (as opposed to the so-called classic murders of Doctors Crippen, Palmer, and the rest), he was half-joking—but only half. As historian Lucy Worsley points out in her introduction to The Art of the English Murder (broadcast on BBC Four as A Very British Murder), the British have always “enjoyed and consumed the idea of murder”: whether real or fictional hardly matters.

Language: en