[WillieMcIntyre]

I find that a lot of crime/mystery fiction revolves around the hunt for a serial killer. The more of these stories that flood the market the more you think you've read it all before; the only difference being that each succeeding author has to think of a more interesting (for interesting read macabre) way for the SK to bump of his/her victims.

That made me wonder: who started it all? Obviously,there have been actual historical SK's such as Sawney Bean (although the jury is out as to whether he did exist) and Jack the Ripper, but who wrote the first fictional account of a serial killer? I don't think Dr Jekyll falls into that catagory as he didn't kill enough people and the furthest I can think back is Agatha Christie's Ten Little 'you know what's' - the title later changed to a more acceptable, 'And Then There Were None'. Anyone got an earlier example?