Interpreting the Ripper Letters

Missed Clues and Reflections on Victorian Society

M. J. Trow

• Publisher: Pen & Sword True Crime
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526739308
• Print ISBN:
  9781526739292
• Subtopic: Modern British History

This true crime history examines the media frenzy surrounding Jack the Ripper—and what the so-called Ripper Letters reveal about Victorian society.
 
In the autumn of 1888, a series of grisly murders took place in Whitechapel in London's East End. The Whitechapel murderer, arguably the first of his kind, was never caught, though the police and local press received hundreds of letters claiming to be from the killer. Though most if not all of these letters were hoaxes, they gave rise to the best known pen-name in criminal history: Jack the Ripper.
 
Some letters were taken more seriously than others, while a few—such as the infamous "Dear Boss" letter—sent thousands on a hunt to follow its clues. This book is not about the world's first serial killer but about the twisted souls who played the part on paper, implicated innocent men, or suggested ever more lurid ways in which he could be caught. For true crime historian M.J. Trow, these letters offer a window into the disturbing shadows of the Victorian mind.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword Ripper Buyer – Beware!
• Chapter One Jack’s ‘Funny Little Games’
• Chapter Two The Men Who Invented Jack the Ripper
• Chapter Three ‘Letters written by him, but none by me’
• Chapter Four ‘Two or Three Hands of Writing’
• Chapter Five ‘Dear Boss’
• Chapter Six ‘Yours Truly’
• Chapter Seven ‘O Have You Seen the Devil?’ or ‘The Proper Red Stuff ’
• Chapter Eight ‘Surely the Lord is in this House’
• Chapter Nine ‘Carroty Curs’ and ‘Double-dyed Villains’
• Chapter Ten ‘You can’t catch me’
• Chapter Eleven An American in London
• Chapter Twelve The Women Who Did
• Chapter Thirteen ‘Just a Few Lines …’
• Chapter Fourteen The Signs of the Zodiac
• Chapter Fifteen The Lusk Letter
• Chapter Sixteen ‘Lewis Carroll was Jack the Ripper’ and ‘The Matrix is real – we’re living in it.’
• Bibliography
• Plate section