Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination - Paperback

by Karen Halttunen (Author)

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Karen Halttunen explores the changing view of murder from early New England sermons read at public executions, through the nineteenth century, when secular and sensational accounts replaced the religious treatment of the crime, to today's fascination with socio-psychological anatomies of murder. Halttunen's penetrating insight into her extraordinary treasure trove of popular crime literature reveals how our modern stories have failed to make sense of the killer and how that failure has constrained our understanding and treatment of criminality today.