"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."

-Thomas De Quincey, A Second Paper on Murder(1839)

A Second Paper on Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts (1839) is the second in a series of three essays Thomas De Quincey wrote on the subject of crime and black humor, the others being "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" (also available from Cosimo Classics) and "Postscript [to On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts]." These essays exerted a strong influence on subsequent literary representations of crime and were lauded by such critics as G. K. Chesterton and George Orwell.