Decline of the English Murder
Encyclopedia
"Decline of the English Murder" is an essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

 by George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

, where he analysed the kinds of murders depicted in popular media, and why people like to read them. Tribune
Tribune (magazine)
Tribune is a democratic socialist weekly, founded in 1937 published in London. It is independent but supports the Labour Party from the left...

published it on 15 February 1946, and Secker and Warburg
Secker and Warburg
Harvill Secker is a British publishing company formed in 2004 from the merger of Secker and Warburg and the Harvill Press.Secker and Warburg was formed in 1936 from a takeover of Martin Secker, which was in receivership, by Fredric Warburg and Roger Senhouse...

 republished it after his death in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays
Shooting an Elephant
"Shooting an Elephant" is an essay by George Orwell, first published in the literary magazine New Writing in the autumn of 1936 and broadcast by the BBC Home Service on 12 October 1948....

in 1952.

The essay is not essentially about murders, but about British habits; his essays in The Lion and the Unicorn
The Lion and the Unicorn
The Lion and the Unicorn are symbols of the United Kingdom. They are, properly speaking, heraldic supporters appearing in the full Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. The lion stands for England and the unicorn for Scotland...

 epitomise much of what he felt. Orwell identified several common features to the perfect murder: middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....

 criminals; sex or respectability as motive; mostly poisoning; deaths slow to be seen as due to crime; a dramatic coincidence or unbelievable occurrence; domestic victims.

His essay Raffles and Miss Blandish
Raffles and Miss Blandish
Raffles and Miss Blandish is an essay by George Orwell written in 1944. It compares the A. J. Raffles crime stories to No Orchids for Miss Blandish by the crime writer James Hadley Chase....

 also casts a light on how he thought an English Murder was in a different class from any other murder.

Orwell excluded Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

 as being "in a class by itself" and considered the cases of Dr. Palmer of Rugeley
William Palmer (murderer)
William Palmer was an English doctor who was convicted of murder in one of the most notorious cases of the 19th century.-Early life:...

, Neill Cream
Thomas Neill Cream
Dr. Thomas Neill Cream , also known as the Lambeth Poisoner, was a Scottish-born serial killer, who claimed his first proven victims in the United States and the rest in England, and possibly others in Canada and Scotland...

, Mrs. Maybrick
Florence Maybrick
Florence Elizabeth Maybrick was an American woman convicted in Great Britain of murdering her considerably older husband, James Maybrick.-Early life:...

, Dr. Crippen
Hawley Harvey Crippen
Hawley Harvey Crippen , usually known as Dr. Crippen, was an American homeopathic physician hanged in Pentonville Prison, London, on November 23, 1910, for the murder of his wife, Cora Henrietta Crippen...

, Frederick Seddon
Frederick Seddon
Frederick Henry Seddon was a British poisoner who was hanged in 1912 for murdering Eliza Mary Barrow.-Background:...

, Joseph Smith
George Joseph Smith
George Joseph Smith was an English serial killer and bigamist. In 1915 he was convicted and subsequently hanged for the slayings of three women, the case becoming known as the "Brides in the Bath Murders". As well as being widely reported in the media, the case was a significant case in the...

, Armstrong
Herbert Rowse Armstrong
Herbert Rowse Armstrong TD. MA. was an English solicitor and convicted murderer, the only solicitor in the history of the United Kingdom to have been hanged for murder...

, Bywaters and Thompson
Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters
Edith Jessie Thompson and Frederick Edward Francis Bywaters were a British couple who were executed for the murder of Thompson’s husband Percy...

 and an unnamed case from 1919 where the accused was acquitted.

Orwell then contrasted this with the Cleft Chin Murder, a recent murder during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, distinguished its by brutality, not emotion nor class. He suggested that people enjoyed the brutality because of the effects of the war, and that it would not be as remembered as the older cases.

The essay was later collected in a compilation entitled Decline of the English Murder and Other Essays, published by London's Penguin Group in 1965.

The essay's opening sentence pictures a typical working Englishman settling down with the News of the World
News of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...

after his Sunday lunch. The final issue of this newspaper in July 2011 quoted this sentence, claiming that Orwell had well described the sentiments of the nation. However, media pundit Max Atkinson
Max Atkinson
Dr Max Atkinson is an author. He is a former advisor and speech writer for Paddy Ashdown, now noted as a blogger for his commentary on public communications.Atkinson holds a PhD from the University of Essex and was a research fellow there in the late 60's....

 argued that Orwell was in fact satirizing
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 the sensationalist tabloids.

External links

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