ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the framework for the turn of the century’s resistance to melodramatic, sensational, and graphic depictions of murder. It presents the prevalence of the melodramatic, sensational, and spectacular modes in nineteenth-century England, and explores various sites and mediums of entertainment in late nineteenth-century London, where murder representations were circulated and consumed. It then moves on to sketch turn-of-the-century transformations in society, politics, and culture, and their contribution to the rise in anxieties about popular culture and decline. The chapter concludes with a discussion of notable contemporary individual and collaborative endeavours to improve art and culture and cultivate serious, intellectual literature and drama.
