James Maybrick

[Ged]

Hi Tony. Didn't you know the Ripper case is solved now, have you not got Tom Slemen's new book?

[burkhilly]

Tom's so very good at solving murder mysteries Ged - and well you know it!

[GeorgePorgie]

Hey,Christopher...have you been through this forum of the ripper murders?

Some lovely gems of old london photographs,mind you I'm only up to page 35...not reading the forum just glancing at the old pics.
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur...ch&um=1&itbs=1

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi George

If you mean the images on the Casebook: Jack the Ripper site I am on there all the time, and have also just signed up to contribute to their new Casebook Wiki site.

Chris

---------- Post added at 08:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:54 PM ----------

Just popped in to say hi again! I would love to make another trip up to Liverpool and to Battlecrease House these days but unemployment and lack of funds won't allow it!

To update you all on the status of the new book about James Maybrick and the diary:

Earlier this year I took steps to try and get back into contact with the author of the work in progress. I am glad to report from having done so that work on the book is still ongoing. Finding enough time to dedicate to completing the book has been blamed for the delay in its appearance but I have been assured that the book will eventually see the light of day.

I have to also report, however, that this was now some months ago and I have subsequently heard nothing more from the author. It will be a real shame if the book does fail to make it onto the shelves because, at the very least, the contents are sure to stir up a great debate and get people from all sides of the argument talking about the issue again. The tragedy with the ripper case though is that, in spite of all the many talented and highly intelligent people involved in its study, ego's do seem to get in the way whenever a particular persons theory is challenged. That does nothing to aid the progress of the investigation and usually ends up in nothing but accusations and occasionally lawsuits...

What a shame.

My gut feeling about the book is not good. For whatever reason, I feel the author has developed 'cold feet' about going ahead with the project. Hopefully, I am wrong about this but it seems strange to me for someone knowingly in possession of a 'hot potato' to keep it in their hands for as long as possible? This itself in my mind opens up further questions surrounding the diary and its authenticity but I guess that's another story...

All the best,

Tony.

Hi Tony

If you have anything that is reportable in Ripperologist about this new Maybrick book we would be glad to run it. I might also add that in the latest Ripperologist, others might like to know that we ran a review of your two CDs, Timeless and In Words, In Music... Of Life, Of Death. The cover of Timeless featuring Tony May* is shown below, folks... special price £15.00 postpaid for the two CDs. (*Maybrick has nothing on Tony!)

Chris

[TonyMay]

Hi Tony. Didn't you know the Ripper case is solved now, have you not got Tom Slemen's new book?

Hi Ged,

Almost every author claims to have solved the ripper case. I'm not aware of Tom Slemen's new book but unless the original victims bodies are exhumed (which is very unlikely to happen now) and some kind of DNA match can be made, I don't think we will ever definitively know who the ripper was.

My own personal favourite for being the ripper is James Maybrick (as you know) but I also feel Francis Tumblety ticks a lot of the right boxes. The other distinct possibility is that more than one person committed the murders - ie that there was one original ripper and then a second who began copycat killing. In this scenario it is just possible that Tumblety was the original ripper and that Maybrick killed Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddows and Mary Kelly.

Interesting stuff!

[ChrisGeorge]

Article on a London society that tried to free Florence Maybrick after her conviction. Courtesy of Howard Brown at JtR Forums:

Illustrated Police News
February 8, 1890
**************


Besides founding the London Maybrick Society, lawyer Alexander William MacDougall wrote The Maybrick Case: A Treatise on the Facts of the Case, and of the Proceedings in Connection with the Charge, Trial, Conviction, and Present imprisonment of Florence Elizabeth Maybrick. London: Baillière, Tindall and Cox, 1891. It's available on Google Books. At 606 pages it's an interesting discussion of the case. Along with Helen Densmore's The Maybrick Case: English Criminal Law (New York: Stillman & Co., 1892) likewise available on Google Books, MacDougall's treatise is one of two books that were defenses of Mrs. Maybrick that appeared during her lifetime.

Chris

[ChrisGeorge]

James Maybrick has some competition. . . .



The Autobiography of Jack the Ripper by James Carnac, due Jan 19, 2012 according to the listing on Amazon. Hardcover. Sign up with them to be notified when this item becomes available, if you so wish. My bookcase is already full so I may or may not get it.

Here's more on this alleged Ripper diary from a BBC news story from 2009:

"Doubts over Ripper 'memoirs' find"

Chris

[Ramsey Campbell]

...The first building on the site [of St George's Hall] was an infirmary that housed a lunatic asylum, close to the location of the courtroom in the Hall – the courtroom where Judge Fitzjames Stephen lost his mind. What may have entered his head overnight that turned him from sympathising with Florence Maybrick to condemning her as a poisoner? He used opium, and perhaps he dreamed of her curious comment that “James took arsenic not to pale his skin” – which Victorians often did – “but to excuse his inhuman pallor.” How could this have driven the judge mad?...

...It’s a photocopy of a crude handbill, which I deduce is early Victorian, advertising a mock trial at the York Hotel in Williamson Square. The title is Jack My***** and his Miraculous Stalk: The “Cellary” Champion Caught on the Hop in Whitechapel...

(...the York Hotel contained a mock courtroom that satirised contemporary scandals until the trial of Jack My***** saw the players and the hotel manager prosecuted for obscenity.)

[ChrisGeorge]

...The first building on the site [of St George's Hall] was an infirmary that housed a lunatic asylum, close to the location of the courtroom in the Hall – the courtroom where Judge Fitzjames Stephen lost his mind. What may have entered his head overnight that turned him from sympathising with Florence Maybrick to condemning her as a poisoner? He used opium, and perhaps he dreamed of her curious comment that “James took arsenic not to pale his skin” – which Victorians often did – “but to excuse his inhuman pallor.” How could this have driven the judge mad?...

...It’s a photocopy of a crude handbill, which I deduce is early Victorian, advertising a mock trial at the York Hotel in Williamson Square. The title is Jack My***** and his Miraculous Stalk: The “Cellary” Champion Caught on the Hop in Whitechapel...

(...the York Hotel contained a mock courtroom that satirised contemporary scandals until the trial of Jack My***** saw the players and the hotel manager prosecuted for obscenity.)

Hello Ramsey

It looks as if you are quoting this from somewhere. Could you provide the source?

Thanks

Chris

[Ramsey Campbell]

Forgive me, Chris - I was being naughty and hoped I'd be found out! It's from my novel of the seven streets, Creatures of the Pool.

I must say the auto-censorship that befell one word in my post made me a little *****ly...

[ChrisGeorge]

Forgive me, Chris - I was being naughty and hoped I'd be found out! It's from my novel of the seven streets, Creatures of the Pool.

I must say the auto-censorship that befell one word in my post made me a little *****ly...

Thanks for clarifying that. It would appear that your novel with have a "lively" side to it.

Good luck to you with it. Keep us posted on when it will be published.

Chris

[Ramsey Campbell]

It has been, Chris!

http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/creatu...bell-426-p.asp

And indeed

http://www.amazon.com/Creatures-Pool...5036327&sr=1-1

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello all

I was impressed by the recent tour I took of the Museum of Liverpool but was disappointed to see the timeline which showed for 1889 that news of the "Maybrick Murders" were spread around the world by Liverpool newspapers. Only one murder, of course, that of the supposed poisoning murder of James Maybrick by his wife Florence. The other thing that I pointed out in my comments to the curators was a World War I price list that showed prices of 12 p, 8 p, 4 p, etc. Of course at that date, such price lists would more likely have been styled as 12 d, 8 d, 4 d not "p."

Possibly the Maybrick mistake is a confusion with the fact that James Maybrick, via the alleged Maybrick Diary, stands accused of the Ripper murders.

Chris

[ChrisGeorge]

Period articles on the Maybrick Case as posted by Howard Brown at JtR Forums.

The Graphic, London, August 17, 1889