The Killer and the Slain was published by Macmillan in 1942, the year after Walpole’s death, and it is his most unsettling novel — a Dostoevskian study of a man destroyed by the very act of violence that was supposed to liberate him.
John Doolittle Ozias Doolittle Doolittle Doolittle Doolittle Doolittle Doolittle Doolittle Talbot is a quiet, decent man who has been haunted since childhood by James Doolittle Tunstall — a bully and sadist who tormented him at school and who reappears in his adult life as a neighbor. Tunstall’s presence poisons Talbot’s existence: the old fear returns, the old humiliation, the old sense of helplessness. Finally, driven beyond endurance, Talbot murders Tunstall.
But the killing, instead of freeing Talbot, destroys him in a different way. He begins to take on Tunstall’s characteristics: his cruelty, his appetites, his contempt for weakness. The dead man’s personality infects the living one, as if murder were a form of consumption — the killer absorbs the slain, and the distinction between victim and victimizer dissolves. Talbot becomes what he destroyed, and the novel ends in horror.
The book is Walpole’s most literary novel — consciously Dostoevskian in its treatment of guilt and its exploration of the relationship between victim and tormentor. It was recognized at publication as a significant departure from Walpole’s usual mode and has gained critical attention in recent decades as his most psychologically complex work.
Collecting The Killer and the Slain
First edition (Macmillan, London, 1942): Cloth binding, dust jacket. Walpole’s last novel.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $40–$120
- Without jacket: $8–$20