Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination
In this absorbing piece of cultural history and analysis, Halttunen (history, Univ. of California at Davis) looks at depictions of murder in American 18th- and 19th-century popular writings. She argues that the killer in literature is a projection of our socially constructed conception of evil. When Esther Rodgers killed her infant child in colonial Maine, the printed account of her crime described her as a common sinner who went too far. Two centuries later, perpetrators of lesser crimes were portrayed as inhuman monsters in the gory horror novelettes of the time. By tracing changes in American literary representations of the killer, Haltunnen chronicles a change in the way we, as a culture, come to terms with violent death. In doing so, she maps the evolution of the moral and religious beliefs of our society. Meticulously researched and compellingly argued, this book represents a solid addition to any American literature collection.AMike Benediktsson, "Library Journal"Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.