| Author |
Message |
    
Brian W. Schoeneman
Inspector
Username: Deltaxi65
Post Number: 284
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 9:51 pm: | 
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All,
In my random web surfing (off of Totalfark.com actually), I found a website that had excerpts from a book published in 1888 by someone calling himself "Walter". It was called "My Secret Life" and was very explicit for the times. As I read portions, it seems like this guy would fit perfectly the sexual background profile of a Ripper candidate. He wouldn't fit the socio-economic profile, but definitely the sexual one.
Has anyone read this book or heard of it?
It can be found at: http://www.my-secret-life.info/
Be careful - it's not safe for work, and a bit vulgar.
B |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Sergeant
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 39
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 11:14 pm: |
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Hi. Brian
MY SECRET LIFE by "Walter", sometimes listed as being by "Anonoymous", was the supposedly true story of a man whose identity was the subject of debate for close to a century.
As you say It is unbelievably explicit and very gross.
The last I heard the Author was found to be a man of means by the name of Henry Spencer Ashby. A well to do silk merchant with plenty of time on his hands.
Have I read it and how do I know about it? Well we were all curious teenagers at one time and I found a copy under my fathers' bed when I was about 15. I read the whole thing with my mouth open totally engrossed. It was kind of like a car wreck, you know its' wrong to stare but you have trouble looking away.
Your point about a possible Ripper connection came to my mind too. The Author can't treat woman the way this man does without having a certain amount of disdain for them. At least this is true in my opinion.
Sorry to blather on, but you have stumbled on a part of my childhood. 
Best Regards
Gary |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 315
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - 4:39 am: |
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Gary, will Trevor soon be writing in to tell us how he found it under YOUR bed?
Robert |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Sergeant
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 41
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - 6:25 am: |
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Hi Robert
I left myself open for that one.
If he does my wife will have me sleeping with the dogs!!
Best
Gary |
Martin Fido
Sergeant
Username: Fido
Post Number: 41
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - 7:43 am: |
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Hi all!
"My Secret Life" is a very important item of Victorian social history, though by any standards "Walter" was freakishly unusual. He apparently ran through three fortunes, spending vast quantities of money on sex. He appears to have been as incapable of passing by a sexual possibility as Georges Simenon, and even more inclined to search them out in odd and squalid places. His inordinate drive led him to brothels and prostitutes all over London, and so from him we get almost our only definite first-hand descriptions of low-life prostitution in London.
Two warnings obtain. Most Victorians of his class would not have ventured as far down the socio-sexual scale as Walter did, so he should never be taken as "typical", or an "example of Victorian hypocrisy", let alone (for our special purposes) proof that Prince Albert Victor might have married a Charlotte Street hooker, or Inspector Aberline might have nursed a passion for Mary Jane Kelly.
And the second warning is that Walter's monomanic obsession with sex may well have led him to exaggerate. He strikes most Victorianists as loosely reliable, but anyone who could willingly devote the time to writing such an enormously long book, virtually exclusively concerned with non-stop sexual adventures, might easily stray into wish-fulfilling fantasy at times.
I have never found the identification of Walter with Ashby very persuasive. Ashby was a book collector who compiled a bibliography of pornography under the pseudonym "Pisanus Fraxby". As far as I can see, it is simply the coincidence that this man was prepared to devote an inordinate amount of time and energy to putting together a sexually "improper" book, and financing its undercover publication, that has led people to suggest that he may have been Walter. There aren't that many Victorian satyrs of the bourgeois business classes or writers of improper books that we can put a name to - in fact Ashby is the only possible that comes to my mind. As a rule we are only aware of the extravagant Victorian sexuality of the aristocracy (Lord Euston, say) or the artistic intelligentsia (Swinburne).
All the best,
Martin F |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Sergeant
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 42
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - 10:14 am: |
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Hi Martin
I have learned there is a book out which I am planning to order from AMAZON called THE EROTOMANIAC; THE SECRET LIFE OF HENRY SPENCER ASHBY, by Ian Gibson. I was wondering if you are familiar with this book and base your doubts about Ashby's having written MY SECRET LIFE on this source.
Perhaps the mystery of authorship continues?
Best Regards
Gary
P.S. Glad to see your posts on the new board
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Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 320
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - 11:11 am: |
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Hi all
I will click the link later when there are no young people around. If Walter is the same man who wrote painstaking descriptions of the women's genitalia, describing their size (and even number!), then I think I remember Channel Four here in England doing a programme on him two or three years ago. I don't know whether it's available on video, though.
Regarding Brian's point, the obsessive and possessive note-taking seems to me to have something in common psychologically with the Ripper's practice of taking body parts.
Robert |
Martin Fido
Sergeant
Username: Fido
Post Number: 44
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 6:47 am: |
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Hi Gary,
I've never read the Gibson life of Ashby, but much of my feeling about the unlikelihood of his being Walter stems from reviews of it in, if I remember rightly, the posh Sundays and the TLS.
All the best,
Martin F |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Sergeant
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 46
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 9:20 am: |
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Hi Robrt
You have the right man alright. He was a sick pup. They would never delve into a joker like Walter on American network T.V.
Hi. Martin
I'll be sure to post my opinion on Ashby once I've read the Gibson book. My enththusiasm is a little dampened to hear about the reviews though.
All the Best
Gary
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Saddam
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - 11:41 pm: |
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'My Secret Life' was evaluated as being fiction by the Editor of The Grove Press (whose name escapes me at the moment), who first published it. The reason he gave was that it follows closely the basic pattern of many works of Victorian pornography: a gradual build-up of sexual experimentation throughout the book, leading up to total sexomania with what the main male character takes as the world's ultimate sex partner extraordinairre, in this case Helen Moorewood.
I've studied Victorian pornography with respect to possible bearing on the Whitechapel murders--it's proved enlightening, but I've never made any substantive connection with the case evidence. Further discussion appreciated.
Saddam
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Diana
Detective Sergeant
Username: Diana
Post Number: 109
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 7:41 pm: |
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Is it possible that Walter was Walter Sickert? |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Sergeant
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 48
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 - 4:48 am: |
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Hi S.H.
When I first read the book as a kid I bought it hook, line and sinker. Looking back it appears to be a combination of fiction, fantasy/ imagination and actual experience.
When Walter went 'slumming' it gives an insight into the lives of women similar to the Whitechappel victims. ALthough he usually used brothels if I recall correctly.
Hi Diana
I enjoy you're suspect ratings.
I'm afraid we will need to bring Patricia Cornwell and her team of DNA experts in to answer that one. It could prove to be another best-seller.
I'm sorry, someone had to say it.
Best Regards
Gary |
Martin Fido
Sergeant
Username: Fido
Post Number: 48
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 - 8:13 am: |
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Hi Gary,
I think your assessment is better than that of the Grove Press editor reported by Saddam.
The most useful comparison, perhaps, is with the memoirs of Frank Harris - another mix of (seometimes explicit) memory and (not always erotic) fantasy.
All the best,
Martin F |
Paul Williams
Police Constable
Username: Wehrwulf
Post Number: 3
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 2:49 pm: |
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Apart from the fact that My Secret Life was probably first published in 1888 is there anything that links it to Jack the Ripper? The author has a knowledge of London prostitutes but he used them for sex and there is no indication that he intended, used, or fantasised about violence. Moreover the book is, at face value, the reflections of a fairly mature man too old to be a serious Ripper candidate. I do find it interesting that he claimed to have posed as a doctor and also think it possible that the text, or other pornography, may have influenced Jack. |
Saddam
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 10:15 pm: |
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When the Victorians dropped their trousers, they did just like us. I don't know anyone who isn't just as "monomaniacally sexual" as Waddie was. All of us here, Martin Fido, RJ Palmer, Stephen Ryder, and me too, we all like the same thing.
Saddam
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Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 207
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 06, 2003 - 6:04 pm: |
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I've just received my copy of Ian Gibson's THE EROTOMANIAC; The Secret Life Of Henry Spencer Ashbee, I am breathless with anticipation since it won't be long before I know what the Victorians did when they 'dropped their drawers'.
Perhaps I will get a rare glimpse into the inner minds of Saddam, Martin, RJ and Stephen. Although, I must admit I'm at a loss to explain why these individuals in particular are singled out as sexual monomaniacs by the Exalted One.
The back cover even mentions that the identity of Walter is a Victorian mystery as great as that of JTR.
Gary
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Martin Fido
Detective Sergeant
Username: Fido
Post Number: 122
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 07, 2003 - 7:49 am: |
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You haven't had prostate treatment, Saddam! The former Casanova of St Katharine's Dock is more like a monk, now! (Or, given the propensities of some monks, more like Lotus-hips the Eunuch). When I drop my drawers, Gary, I contemplate a sadly shrivelled object.
All the best,
Martin F |
Jack Traisson
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, August 08, 2003 - 3:32 am: |
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Here is a fine example of just one of the many techniques formerly employed by Casanova Fido back in the day 
Cheers, |
Shelley Wiltshire
Sergeant
Username: Shelley
Post Number: 27
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, July 31, 2004 - 5:19 pm: |
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Hi all,
'My secret life'...This if i recall correctly, is in the British Museum. The authorities wanted to destroy this writing, but the British museum wanted to preserve it, the museum won ther arguement. I doubt very much if the writer of it was called Walter, it's just a pornographic stage name, so as not to offend his family. |
Jack Jones
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, September 05, 2004 - 6:18 pm: |
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http://www.my-secret-life.com/
The Web site has now been updated to include the full eleven volumes, and is full searchable.
Ian |
