Quote Originally Posted by TonyMay View Post
Hi everybody, this is my first post and I can't help chuckling to myself about the subject matter! I'm not a nutter (honest guv') but I am a keen Ripperologist and a beleiver in the Diary (sorry Chris! HA HA).
I read with interest Chris George's comments about the Maybrick diary and I agree that there are many puzzling questions to do with the diary that cannot be explained by either of the pro/against diary camps.
For me however the diary is simply too good a piece of work to be fake. By this I mean (and I say this as an Author myself) that IF the diary was to ever be conclusively proven to be a fake (to everybody's satisfaction!) then it would quite simply be the most impressive piece of work EVER BAR NONE.
I should say also at this point that as well as being a writer I have for many years suffered with depression. The psychological profile that the diary paints of the writer (and the succession of mood swings it portrays) I have to say is quite typical of how one does feel. In my opinion NO WRITER regardless of ability could so accurately and faultlessly artificially reproduce this.
One other thing that strikes me about the diary is that it begins half way through a sentence. As a writer I think it extremely unlikely that any potential forger would begin a piece of work in this way. It is pretty much fundamental when writing to structure a clear beginning, middle and end.
Well Chris that should get you up on your high horse!! HA HA HA
I look forward to being 'shot down' and welcome anyone's thoughts on the subject!
Hello Tony

Nice to meet you. It is clearly a fake because it is not in James Maybrick's handwriting, plain and simple. If it was real it would be written in Maybrick's handwriting, and have a clear provenance traceable to Maybrick, which it hasn't.

You say, "One other thing that strikes me about the diary is that it begins half way through a sentence. As a writer I think it extremely unlikely that any potential forger would begin a piece of work in this way."

Well there are as you know, 63 pages cut out at the front of the book. The Diary itself is some 63 pages long. This could indicate that the first part of the book contained an earlier version of the Diary. At any rate, for whatever reason, pages were removed which left one sentence beginning mid-sentence. I don't find it that inconsistent that someone, a forger, was trying to hide something or that a forger might think that beginning in mid-sentence might make the beginning of the narrative seem more plausible.

You might be right that the psychology displayed in the Diary is consistent with Maybrick's, and I grant you that David Canter and others have found what is in the Diary to be realistic. However that still doesn't make the Diary the real McCoy.

It is also highly melodramatic and reads as if it is a story meant to be read by the public at large rather than a private diary or journal, which it purports to be.

Once again though we have to get back to the fact that the forger did not take care to try to match Maybrick's handwriting - so how good a forger or hoaxer were they?

Best regards



Chris