Summary

Chapter 1 reveals the details of the murders of a shopkeeper and his family. The murder is similar to historical ones which the main character, Tom De Quincey, has chronicled in he essays. The murderer is described as an artist of death. He prepares himself for his ‘craft’ much in the same way as artists such as Rubens, Van Dyke, and Titian had by dressing in evening clothes, packing items such as a wig and beard, a mallet, and an ivory-handled razor. He meditates coming events. Then, he hails a cab to the Adelphi Theater in the Strand. He goes into the theater dressed in evening clothes, already knowledgeable enough about “The Corsican Brothers” play that he can use it as his alibi and slips out of a side door shortly before the curtain rises. He stands for ten minutes to...