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Title: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: The Chilling Confessions of James Maybrick by Shirley Harrison ISBN: 0-671-52099-7 Publisher: Pocket Pub. Date: 01 October, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.29 (28 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Maybrick & Barret tragedies alone are worth the read
Comment: I will be brief for Dr O aka James OBlivion gives in a verbose manner plenty of material for us to not be taken in by Harrison's enthusiasm for the maybrick/ripper theory. I bought and read the hardcover before barret's (the diary owner) confession-retraction and retraction of the retraction that the diary was a hoax. Then that it was not a hoax but that he was mad that his wife ran off with the publisher. (frankly I lost track of where he is in the cycle now) The Story in the book is GREAT regardless of wether or not it is true. People geat really worked up over the whole thing but the truth is Nobody can prove who did the ripping now and this book was written about one theory. HOWEVER, the true worth of the book lies in the sad tale of a drug addict obssesed with his wife's possible infidelity. Whats Ironic is that If Barret told the truth that he had his wife write the diary in words he came up with for Maybrick, he was tragically predicting his future state. "My thoughts will remain intact, for a reminder to all how love does destroy".
Rating: 1
Summary: One word - FICTION
Comment: Okay, say the name on the tip of your tongue - The Diary of Jack the Ripper - and watch as the dollar signs flicker before your eyes. It was bound to happen sooner or later. The reason why the Diary is still popular today is because a few Ripperologists attached their name to it and few have had the guts to actually say that they where wrong and walk away from it. The Diary is essentially a mini-volume of notes allegedly written by James Maybrick, around the time of the Whitechapel murders, that sign at the end as "Jack the Ripper". So how does it read? Well it is reasonably fair to say that it is very creative reading and does keep you entertained, but then again that is exactly what it is meant to do. What we know today is that it is undoubtedly a forgery because the owner of the book Michael Barrett simply admitted to forging it himself. End of story, really. So you might enjoy this book but remember that it is only fiction and the case is still far from solved.
What one must remember is that James Maybrick is still a Ripper suspect and was a Ripper suspect long before the advent of the Ripper Diary so don't discount this suspect just on the bases of this book being a forgery.
Click on the authors name and have a good look around. I am sure you will be impressed and the message will finally sink home. Shame about the Ripperologists who went pair-shaped hooking up with this book as the Real McCoy. There have been a few causalities because of it.
Rating: 2
Summary: An interesting little hoax
Comment: I've been interested in Jack the Ripper for as long as I can remember. ...
So, I happened upon this book and read it with great interest. I must say that even then, I was skeptical, and by no stretch of the imagination did I consider this book to be the resounding final solution that some still hold it up as. ...they're all just theories...and none of them truly hold up against close scrutiny. But I was still fascinated by this book the first time I read it, and there is a lot of decent information on the killings...which is why I've given it the two stars.
Then there's the actual diary. Well, the people who still advocate the notion that this diary is authentic have a rude awakening in store. It's not. The more I read on Jack the Ripper, and the more times I read the diary, the more obvious it became that the diary was NOT written by Jack the Ripper...or even James Maybrick...but by someone living in the 20th century who thought it would be "cool" to elaborately pull the wool over the eyes of Ripperologists worldwide. Well, it hasn't worked. And here are the reasons that the Maybrick diary is a fake.
First of all, there are some anachronisms in language in the diary itself, giving it away as a modern .... That's pretty cut and dried, but not nearly as damning as other factors.
There are many errors in "Maybrick's" descriptions of the crimes, and the crime scenes. It's interesting to note that all of this erroneous information can be found in old newspaper clippings from 1888, when the murders were occuring. But, as was often the case in Victorian times, many of the newspaper stories were quite wrong about the details of the crimes. The newspaper stories don't match the reports of the police officials and/or medical examiners involved...the people who actually gathered the information. So, we can conclude that much of the "factual" information in the Maybrick diary seems to rely on old news clippings, rather than the firsthand experience of the murderer. Surely, if Maybrick WAS Jack the Ripper, he'd know exactly what organs were missing from whom, and where key body parts were located if they were removed and left behind. He'd also know that Jack didn't take the key to Mary Kelly's flat with him when he fled the scene, etc. Unfortunately, the person who forged this diary DIDN'T know some of those facts.
Also, it's interesting to note that there are many parallels between this diary and the "Dear Boss" letter (which gave Jack the Ripper his name). If you read the diary with the chronology of the Ripper's murders and letters in mind, you'll see that "Maybrick" uses the very specific phrase "funny little games" (which was prominent in the Dear Boss letter) twice BEFORE the Dear Boss letter was ever written or sent. This would mean that, were the diary genuine, Maybrick would have to be the author of the Dear Boss letter, as well. But the Dear Boss letter is commonly accepted among Ripperologists as a fraud, written by someone other than the killer (much like this diary). One high-ranking police official who worked the case even had a pretty good idea who wrote the letter...and that person was a young, aspiring journalist. Couple this with the obvious fact that the handwriting in the diary in NO WAY resembles the handwriting in the Dear Boss letter, and we've found yet another broken link in the chain of this hoax.
I could go on and on, listing reasons that I know this diary to be a fraud...but that would be self-indulgent, especially since the most damning piece of evidence against the authenticity of this diary is the most simple one of all.
Michael Barrett brought this diary to Shirley Harrison, claiming that it had been given to him by a friend. The friend had said "No questions asked," and given no reason on earth as to WHY he would give this diary to Barrett. Surely, if his friend had ever been in possession of such a book, he would have gone public himself, rather than GIVING AWAY what could have been the most vital (and valuable) piece of serial killer memorabilia/evidence ever uncovered. Conveniently, Barrett's friend was dead by the time Barrett decided to bring the diary to the attention of anyone...therefore, he could neither confirm nor deny anything Barrett said...and so, Barrett could say whatever he wanted. And what Barrett eventually said...after all of the debate and controversy, after Shirley Harrison had written this book, after countless researchers spent countless hours analyzing this diary of his...was that he himself had written the diary, and that his wife had handwritten it in the old scrapbook, using his typed notes as a guide. End of story.
So, due to all of the evidence against the diary's authenticity, including the admission of the actual author that he had masterminded the entire hoax, the James Maybrick Diary controversy can be put entirely to rest. Therefore, this book is interesting only as a curio, and as a source of some factual information on the Ripper murders (but none that can't be found in other, better Ripper books). Give it a read, but don't buy into it. The debate is over. And Jack the Ripper remains, as he always shall, unidentified.
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Title: Jack the Ripper: The American Connection : Includes the Diaries of James Maybrick by Shirley Harrison, David Canter ISBN: 185782590X Publisher: John Blake Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sudgen ISBN: 0786709324 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers Pub. Date: 09 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Jack the Ripper: The Final Chapter (Virgin True Crime) by Paul H. Feldman ISBN: 0753506378 Publisher: Virgin Publishing Pub. Date: 01 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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