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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through April 22, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Specific Suspects:
Later Suspects [ 1910 - Present ]:
Carroll, Lewis:
Archive through April 22, 2001
Author: Anonymous
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 01:47 pm |        | | In last month's Harper's, there was an article by Richard Wallace, author of THE AGONY OF LEWIS CARROLL. He postulates that Lewis Carrol/Charles Dodgson is Jack the Ripper in another schism of his personality. As evidence he takes anagrams--Dodgson the mathematician was obsessed with them--of Dodgson's works and the Ripper's known letters in which the identities can be seen. |
Author: Stephen P. Ryder
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 01:47 pm | |
The problem with anagrams is that they can be made out of practically anything. The research I've done in this area has centered upon the mathematical probabilities which decree whether or not an anagram is coincidental. If I remember correctly the "magic number" (or the number of characters in a phrase or sentence beyond which a practically infinite number of other practical sentences can be made) is around 34. Wallace's "anagrams" use sentences and even complete *paragraphs* with characters numbering well into the hundreds!
Try it yourself -- I'm sure you can probably make an anagram out of just about any phrase or sentence.
(As a matter of fact, I just now made the following anagram out of that last sentence -- "Try it yourself..." 79 characters long):
F. Abberline can't see anyone out. My anagrams boast of a sour autumn.
-- Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper
And the only letters I have left are O and Y. See what I mean? (By the way, Fred Abberline was the inspector involved in the case). That anagram makes perfect sense, and uses almost all the letters (I'm sure if I really took some time out to do so I could make an anagram using all the letters). Does that mean that I'm Jack the Ripper? I sure hope not! ;)
And for the same reason, I think Wallace's claims should be taken with a grain of salt. His anagrams do make sense (sort of), but I'm sure I could probably make an anagram explaining Nietzsche's philosophy, or even the lyrics of a Beatles song out of the same letters if I really applied myself. Anyone could if they tried hard enough.
Not to mention the fact that Wallace cites some Ripper letters which are believed by most *not* to be genuine, the "Eight Little Whores" poem, for instance (keep in mind Scotland Yard received *thousands* of letters between 1888 and 1964 purporting to be from the Ripper himself -- imagine all the possible anagrams!)
All in all, could Wallace be right? Sure. Has he proven himself beyond the shadow of a doubt? Not by a long shot. Anagrams are not definite proof, even if they were formed from small sentences of less than 34 characters. |
Author: Richard Wallace
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 01:48 pm | | Just thought I’d write a few thoughts regarding my book Jack the Ripper: Lighthearted Friend, some portions of which you may want to include in your Casebook.
There is no question about the fact that most people who hear the allegation that Lewis Carroll was Jack the Ripper are filled with incredulity -- "Preposterous!" No one was more skeptical of the notion than I was when it first entered my mind after I finished writing and was in the process of preparing The Agony of Lewis Carroll for publication in 1989. That work is a rather complete psychobiography of Dodgson and includes much material from the works of others who saw much of a sinister nature in his famous 'children’s' books, but all of their opinions very much interpretive. Of course any work on the author runs against the very protective Carroll crowd which has been protecting him as his family did after his death. The essential finding of my book was to identify the extent to which anagrams were present in his works, the clues he left (use of italics, character reactions out of sync with the written passage but in sync with the hidden material, then finally the direct references made in the introduction to his Sylvie and Bruno. What came as no surprise was that the nature of the anagrams was consistent with expert opinion regarding his underlying psyche -- very disturbed. The content of the anagrams included common smut along with self-disclosures, especially about the Rugby experience, which even his nephew-biographer Collingwood said had more of an effect than it does for other boys. These crimes were a reenactment of his felt destruction from the school days, where his emotional growth ceased; while enormously bright and creative, Dodgson’s emotional life was stuck at adolescence. (This entire Carroll/Ripper effort on my part derives from my work as a therapist with abused children, some of who are able to disclose their mutilative wishes toward their perpetrators or the parents they expected to protect them.)
In any event the anagram derived from Jabberwocky, so consistent with the underlying masturbatory theme of the body of the poem, continued to haunt me and led me to wonder if Dodgson had indeed acted out his misogyny (playing with the minds of the little girls he befriended -- witness the illustration of penile manipulation in his hand-drawn illustration in the original manuscript given to Alice Liddell) and rage in a more public/physical way. Was it possible that he was Jack the Ripper?
I decided after wavering for 3 months and continuing to research his works as well as reading up on JTR (I had liked the BBC solution with Michael Caine and knew I couldn’t match their resources) for the first time. I then went to England for 6 weeks, rented a flat and spent much time at the British Library learning how different Dodgson’s diary manuscripts were compared to the published version, and examining records at Kew, Colindale, the London Police, and finally to Oxford to check on the diaries of his close friend and partner in crime Thomas Vere Bayne. Much work was done reading the books Dodgson had in his library, especially the Masonic secrets, the autopsy from the Road murder (Ripper victims died similar deaths and the report told how to avoid blood spatter from throat cutting.
What resulted was a rather complete picture of a man who lived a public facade of respectability while he ruminated and plotted in secret, indeed dedicated his life to that very task as a way to 'cheat death.' Opportunity, knowledge (medical, Masonic, killing), and motive are all explored in detail in the work. Included is a forensic handwriting analysis of his diary and some of the 'Ripper' documents. Of course there are some anagrams, especially from 'The Gardener’s Song' from Sylvie and Bruno, which he pointed out in his introduction could be verse-themed from material surrounding the verses. Explored also is a very possible/likely connection to Druitt with three pieces of evidence that he may have been involved in his 'suicide.'
One of the conclusions that I reached regarding JTR was that there was plenty of room for a new suspect and one who fit the historical opinion of many experts over the years. Their opinions have changed in more recent years as the more modern serial killer profile has emerged. I spend a chapter on that historical profile and how Dodgson fits.
The charge of 'preposterous!' comes, I think, from people whose knowledge of Dodgson comes from the Alice works and the rather pallid and idealized life which is described in introductions carried in those books. But his life was considerably more complex than what is usually presented. Morton Cohen, in his biography published a couple of years ago, finally admitted that Dodgson was a pedophile, though he continues to deny anything sinister in the behavior. I indicated in my first E-mail that the book has been praised for its research. What I tried to do, and stated so clearly in the work, is something I have seen little of in Ripper research -- i.e., that any good researcher tries to DISPROVE his own theory by presenting any material found which contradicts the hypothesis, the motivation being to not only be thorough but to prevent anyone else from being able to disparage the work. Of course, I hope others will take up the challenge, especially those closer to the scene. (I already have a letter friend in England who has researched police files looking for 'Charles Dodgson' and has found some interesting material -- precisely what is his to disclose at the owner.
In any event, I’ve sent copies off for review in Ripperana and Ripperologist as well as to Stephen Wright. I’m also involved in a marketing effort with my distributor BookWorld to increase print media coverage. And, lastly, I hope to be able to announce the sale of film rights in a week or so. |
Author: Rubaerose
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 01:49 pm | | | have you ever looked into the possibilities of Lewis Carroll as a suspect? the study of his "anagrams" and his background, not to mention Alice Liddell's uncanny likeness to the ripper victims, make me raise an eyebrow. think of the "madonna/ whore" complex common among serial killers- Carroll loved the little girl, Alice, who was pure and innocent... it's reputed he had an abusive situation with his mother... perhaps he adored those young girls who looked like his mother, and hated the prostitutes who resembled her. just a suggestion- i really like your site! |
Author: Karoline Leach
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 01:49 pm | | I have not been a close follower of the Ripper debate, but I have to congratulate you on the standard of your Casebook; I wish my own discipline was so energised with informed debate.
My discipline is Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), and I discovered your page while looking into Richard Wallace's JTR; your light-hearted friend. Of course the claims it makes are entirely, if not wantonly, baseless - (if you would like a more detailed critique I could probably give you one} - but as a biographer with a new work coming out this autumn, I have to follow up all avenues of enquiry. I noted that in one post to you Mr. Wallace makes mention of a friend of his in England who has been researching police records and come up with some mention of Dodgson. His mail is dated some time ago and I was wondering if any of your correspondents had heard of any further developments.
Dodgson does mention JTR in his diary once, on the 26 August 1891. He refers to having heard a 'most interesting theory' on the case put forward by one Dr.Dabbs. He doesn't record what the theory was, and I haven't discovered anything about it. Again, perhaps someone out there might know something more. If it helps at all, Dr. Dabbs was Lord Tennyson's physician on the Isle of Wight. By the way, I think Tumblety did it, but I am intrigued by how this Joseph Sickert might have acquired all his background on Annie Crook if his entire story was, as some of your contributors assert, an invention. Of course I am only a tyro. Thanks for your attention, and for a very intelligent and entertaining page.
Karoline Leach, Author
In the Shadow of the Dreamchild - a new understanding of Lewis Carroll |
Author: William Lukesh
Friday, 16 April 1999 - 11:42 pm | | Folks,
I just had a chance to read Wallace's two books.( Along with the 'A-Z' Jack the Ripper' which I used as reference.) I've got to say it asks more questions than it answers. Of course, the 'Carroll people' dismiss it outright as foolishness, but they dismiss his proclivity of taking photos of naked prepubesent girls as normal. I've read more than my share of Carroll including his math books(I'm a mathematician myself) like "Euclid and his modern rivals' Those are filled with some really twisted arguments that would be hard to describe to a non-mathmatician. Wallace's books are the first I've seen that really make sense of that issue.
I do have to add The anagrams Wallace provides, as far fetched as they seem, are within Carroll's formula. The two books do offer some insight into the type of breakdown that could cause a good victorian gentleman to become a killer. Perhaps not Carroll, but someone who had like experiences.
William Lukesh |
Author: Leachy
Saturday, 17 April 1999 - 03:33 am | | The best thing I can suggest is that you read a BRILLIANT new biography of Lewis Carroll that is just out . It's called 'In the Shadow of the Deamchild', written by an extraordinarily gifted writer whose name I don't remember. Maybe someone else can help. The critics love it, and not only because it has pictures of naked women inside. In scinitllating prose, the author demonstrates that Dodgson wasn't a paedophile, (or a homosexual, or Queen Victoria).
Though I was less convinced by her last chapter, where she uses anagrams to prove that Carroll didn't die, but simply changed his name and moved to St. Petersburg, where, in political union with Kerensky he endeavoured to stave off the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, before inventing the four-slice toaster, fathering Martina Navratilova, and moving to New York to join the Algonquin Round Table, under the pseudonym of 'Dorothy Parker'.
Although, as a Ms. Graham points out in her beautifully-written foreword, no one has yet proved it didn't happen.
Leachy
Errmm in case the board-police are watching - only joking.
It was a two-slice toaster. |
Author: Peter Birchwood
Saturday, 17 April 1999 - 01:09 pm | | Well I suspect that Leachy, whose nomme-de-guerre rings a small bell is referring to a currently popular book by Karoline Leach which is available at all good booksellers except those in Wales where the current best-seller is a biography of Carroll Lewis, a zither player from Merthyr Tydfil called: "In the Shadow of the RTZ Sheep Rendering Plant."
Interestingly enough, in Ms. Leachs' otherwise admirable book, she prints as appendix II some of Dodgson's love poetry the first of which (The Dream of Fame) starts with a verse of six lines the initial letters of which are: HA HH AA which suggests pretty positively that Dodgson wrote the Dear Boss letter and the Diary of Jack the Ripper. The nudes in the photo se4ction are worth £19.95 of anybody's money.
Peter. |
Author: James
Wednesday, 19 May 1999 - 01:51 pm | | Dear all
My name is James Long and i am 13
I am fascinated by Jack the ripper and i would like to thank you for all your useful information.
I am doing a report on Jack the ripper. You really helped!
I will be visiting this site in the future!!
CHEERS! |
Author: bill lukesh
Friday, 18 June 1999 - 12:25 pm | | Folks,
I know this is off topic, but I do think this Lewis Carroll/Jack the Ripper slant gives for an excellent staging of Berg's Opera 'Lulu' since it ends with Lulu becoming a ripper victim. Lulu as Alice and set the thing in Wonderland. The great opera based on Wedekind's plays which challanged victorian morals and the children's book hinting at the true perversity of those morals combined.
Bill Lukesh |
Author: Villon
Friday, 18 June 1999 - 02:10 pm | | Bill,
I'm assuming that by 'perversity' you mean perversion. I know it's becoming an increasingly common usage but it seems singularly pointless when both words have perfectly good and distinct meanings already.
I can't really see your staging idea working because the arguments for any kind of sub-textual perversion in Alice in Wonderland are about as convincing as those for Lewis Carroll as the Ripper.
So long
Mike |
Author: Sarah R. Jacobs
Monday, 19 July 1999 - 08:05 pm | | Do you folks really think that a mathematician who spent all of his time photographing children, inventing stories, and solving Euclidiean puzzles is JACK THE RIPPER?!?!?!
Please!
'All in the Golden Afternoon,
Full leisurely we glide...'
until I chop off half your neck and take out your uterus?!?!?!
WRONG!!!!
Carroll/Dodgson LOVED women and girls!!!
His only "hate" quote was:
'I love all children, except for little boys.'
Find me an Eton boy floating in the Thames River in 1888 and then maybe we'll talk about Dodgson's "serial killing impulse," okay? |
Author: Rotter
Friday, 13 August 1999 - 01:03 am | | | Just letting you know that Karoline's book "In the Shadow of the Dreamchild" is coming out in the US in September ($39.95, a little steep).I have just gotten a review copy and from what I can see after browsing it for a couple of hours it is a very good read for anyone interested in Victoriana. Although impressive academically it is not written in the clogged academic style that keeps most people away from "lit crit." Highly recommended for Casebook readers. |
Author: LeahG
Saturday, 27 May 2000 - 10:33 am | | | I think it's silly suspecting a person like Lewis Carrol being JTR. This is too much. I agree with scholars who say he was a pedophile but this fact doesn't rank him as a JTR suspect! carroll is just another celebrity jack the ripper suspect which I will smash wherever I see them. If Carroll, why not contuine with Oscar Wilde? |
Author: richard wallace
Wednesday, 31 May 2000 - 02:17 pm | | This is my first post to the message board after a long absence in visiting the site in any depth; it has become quite a site.
I’d like to make a few comments regarding my book Jack the Ripper: Lighthearted Friend (as well
as The Agony of Lewis Carroll), in part in response to some of the comments here and elsewhere. The issue of “anagrams” comes up often and quite fairly in terms of their value as evidence. But I do find a pattern in the responses. Readers fall broadly into three categories, those who believe
those presented are for the most part pretty good and evidence of something nefarious in
Dodgson’s “children’s” books, those who aren’t sure and/or don’t know what to make of my
books, and those (often the Lewis Carroll defense team) who cannot accept even the possibility
that just one or two of the anagrams presented might be his rather than mine. These latter are the most vocal and usually engage in vague mathematical arguments or present inane examples of their own making as arguments against my thesis. What is strange is that in my books I indicate quite clearly that other possible anagrams exist given the number of letters involved. I make no claim that the ones I present are definitive, yet many who attack my works attack as if I make that claim.
This latter crowd MUST reject even the possibility that Dodgson used anagrams in his children’s books because if they even admit to the possibility, the entire house of cards which is the Dodgson myth comes tumbling down. Not only that, but a community of respected literary scholars would appear as if they had been hoodwinked by a master of deceit, not a pretty sight. So, denial is the best defense. And if these kinds of anagrams could/did come from this self-invented paragon, why NOT Jack the Ripper, too?
I should mention another fourth but small crowd, that of (especially) older friends who, knowing
me personally and believing that my efforts were reasonably thorough and fair, don’t want their
lifetime enjoyment of Carroll’s books spoiled. These politely decline to read my books. Perhaps
it’s this “accidental” reading-and-spoiling that makes many so angry.
Karoline Leach’s new work makes a real contribution to the discussion of the extent to which the Carroll myth has been invented, protected, and perpetuated. I disagree with her implications regarding Dodgson’s involvement with women but can see why his behaviors could be interpreted the way she has chosen to interpret them. Unfortunately, such treatment of women can be a hallmark sign of pathological misogyny. Ms. Leach’s focus on her own anagrams suggests that
she can’t quite get the notion out of her mind.
I have never seen any argument against other aspects of my analysis of the murders: as responses to abuse, their quality as quasi experimental, as game-playing, as religious based, as obscene responses to vivisection, as a raree show, and where Charles Dodgson just might fit into all that. This might mean that they are accepted as worthy if not perfect, or that they are dismissed as irrelevant because of the anagrams. But that first crowd that I mentioned, those who accept the anagrams as likely buried in Dodgson’s works, seem most impressed by the rest of the argument, which details the origins of such rage and a possible outcome in murder. This is especially true of people who have experienced the “nighttime annoyances” of the private boys’ school, so cavalierly dismissed by some.
One of the reasons I was so pleased with the Introduction to my book by Colin Wilson, given the
fact that he did NOT fully endorse my conclusions, is that he saw the book for what it is: an attempt to present something quite different in terms of crime-solving, one that did not present itself as a “final solution” and one which encouraged more work by others who might be so inclined. Perhaps in this day and age readers are not used to such books, especially in the
crime-solving genre, or given the one-hour wrapped-up solutions on television. Perhaps that same feeling of “worthy of presentation” is why Harper’s Magazine presented the book in their
well-respected journal. There’s no question the books challenge readers to think outside the box.
Really, the notion of examining as-if through a looking glass did not originate with me.
An update for readers. I have not heard of any further investigation into possible criminal activity by Dodgson. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 02 June 2000 - 03:43 am | | Mr. Wallace--
Hello. Personally, I give no weight whatsoever to anagrams. I think Stephen Ryder did an admirable job in his posting above to discredit them, so I won't repeat his arguments here.
But let me pretend for a moment that Dodgson's anagrams ARE legitimate. Does this prove that he is the Ripper? Certainly not. Dr. William Holt, Neill Cream, D'Onston Stephenson and others also claimed at one time or the other to be Jack the Ripper; that doesn't mean they were. If Dodgson is to have ANY credibility as a viable suspect you must ultimately rely on something more substantial.
I did a little (very little) checking last winter. Dodgson was in his late 50's, was in poor health, and was living in Oxford in the fall of 1888. At the time of the Whitechapel murders he was writing very mundane letters about such things as wallpaper, milkmen, and his various health problems. Yes, his main interest at this time seems to have been in sketching and photographing nude girls. But do you have anything to physically link him to Whitechapel? With all due respect, you wont' be taken very seriously until you do.
RJP |
Author: richard wallace
Saturday, 03 June 2000 - 05:16 pm | | Response to R.J. Palmer.
I'm not sure how much more I can add to the anagram argument; there's a lot in both books which I won't repeat here. But there are many readers who think I'm on to something real, in part because we know that Dodgson was quite expert at them and certainly the "nonsense" provided a great vehicle for them. As to the question "Are they his or are they mine" I'm afraid that remains forever a mystery. But IF he did write in anagrams with themes LIKE I suggest, we certainly need to look further into what else was in his mind. It would make all his positions on issues of the day questionable, including such as vivisection.
I'll refer readers to my books (or others such as Morton Cohen) as to what Dodgson was up to during the murder period. Your description is, frankly, wrong. As to physically linking him to Whitechapel, it's highly unlikely that that can be done, but so what? Some think that if he had been there it would be in his diaries! Duhhh! Not likely. Quite frankly, I'd be quite skeptical of ANY document produced that placed any new or old suspect there. After all, it is 112 years later. I would not be the first to believe that the murders were committed by an outsider who came and went without leaving a trace, certainly a trace to be found today. I really do believe that the continued pursuit of "hard evidence" is a fools errand, or better, hardly likely to bear fruit.
My argument, and it carries some weight with many is that I have identified a psychological personality CAPABLE of the murders, which no one else has done (certainly Maybrick doesn't fit). But I admit to needing help to complete the case. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Saturday, 03 June 2000 - 10:49 pm | | Mr. Wallace--
Hello Again. Thank you for responding to my ealier post.
Out of fairness, I don't want to comment further on your theory until I read "Lighthearted Friend". I am only aware of the Harper's article and your postings here. I'd be waisting your time otherwise.
But, in regards to your last post, I would like to examine my ealier description of Dodgson "at the time of the murders" to see if I was indeed, (as you say) "wrong". I said the following: Dodgson was in his late 50's, was in poor health, was living in Oxford, was writing mundane letters about wallpaper, etc, and was primarily interested in photographing and sketching nude girls. I'll take them one at a time:
1. Dodgson was in his late 50's. He was in fact, 56 in the autumn of 1888, 57 in the winter of 1889, and 59 in the winter of 1891.(I'm not certain which crimes you attribute to Jack the Ripper/Dodgson).
2. He was in poor health. Relative, I suppose. I was thinking of the following statement in the biography of Dodgson that I own ("Lewis Carroll" by Derek Hudson, 1977):
"'Feeding the Mind' was a lecture that Dodgson delivered for W.H. Draper, Vicar of Alfreton, in September 1884. He had another attack of 'a feverish cold of ague-type' while he was staying at Alfreton on that occasion, but the local doctor then pronounced him 'a thoroughly healthy man'.
So indeed he probably was, physically speaking. But W.H. Draper, recalling Dodgson's 'nervous, highly strung manner as he stood before the little room full of simple people' to talk on 'Feeding the Mind', put his finger on the reason for much of the ill-health that he experienced. The occasional sleeplessness, and the intermittent attacks of migraine during which he saw 'moving fortifications' (he first recorded such an attack in 1885) were clearly of nervous origin, and the other maladies from which he suffered in the late 'eighties--such as boils, eczema, cystitis and synovitis--are not uncommon in persons of his constitution when under strain. Synovitis more than once condemned him to his sofa and to courses of bandages and iodine. He consulted a homeopathic doctor in 1888 and was told that his spleen was out of order. In February, 1891, he fainted at the end of morning chapel and found himself an hour later on the floor of the stalls with his nose bleeding" (pg. 228) Still, I suppose, his health could be regarded as relatively good.
3. Dodgson was living in Oxford. Yes, Christchurch. This isn't in dispute, is it?
4. He was writing mundane letters about wallpaper, milkmen, and his health during that period. To illustrate, here's one of the letters I was thinking of (I'll pick a brief one):
'Will you kindly inform Mr. A. Silver, of 84 Brook Green, that Mr. Lewis Carroll has no objection to his using Tenniel's pictures for the wall-paper which he proposes to design. Please add the suggestion that the LONGER the paper can be made, before the pattern repeats itself, the better: the thing has been already tried once, but the pattern repeated itself in about 2 yards of length, so that, even in a small room, the same picture would recur many times, with a very tedious effect. 20 yards of length, before the pattern recurs, would be none too long.' (October 14th, 1888). Mundane, about wallpaper, written at the time of the murders. (I think it is fair to say that they give some insight into his state of mind; at least as much as the alleged anagrams)
5. His main interest was in photographing and sketching nude girls. Well here I played it fast and loose! Point taken. Dodgson DID photograph and sketch nude girls, of course, but this hobby had ended by the early 1880's.
Well, all in all, I suppose I didn't exactly pass with Honors, but I don't think I was necessarily overwhelmingly "wrong".
As for your pessimism about tracing Dodgson's movements in Autumn of 1888, I don't share it. I think it is highly probable that some hard evidence of his whereabouts on one of the murder dates could be dredged up. Much has been learned about the movements of M.J. Druitt in the past 25 years, even though he was an obscure barrister. Dodgson was a well-known personality.
Well, I hope to read your book soon, and I promise to give it a fair trial.
Best regards,
RJP |
Author: richard wallace
Tuesday, 06 June 2000 - 11:10 am | | Mr. Palmer:
I should have suggested your post was “off base” rather than wrong.
I do hope you’ll read both books as it looks as if information in the first that is not in the second will interest you. Your comment makes me wonder how many others who post have not read the book. I continue to be pleased that my biggest buyers are libraries, certainly not because the books are wildly popular. I continue with the delusion that it’s because they consider them worthy of their collection.
Dodgson was in his mid to late fifties at the time of the murders, certainly not old, continuing to walk as much as 20 miles a day and exercising with upper body equipment. He was in good physical shape although he did have the stress related aches and pains and was prone to nurse himself with them. AOLC spends much time on migraines and the personality characteristics which tend to be behind them. JTR spends much time on the February 1891 fall in chapel,
why it occurred just a week before the “last” Ripper murder and discusses that symptom combined with the lack of “courage” seen in completing the mutilation in that last murder. While he was writing mundane letters at the time he was also completing Sylvie and Bruno and The Nursery Alice
for publication. JTR covers the issue of their timing. None of that precludes him having the time or mind set to either murder or socialize with girls and women.
He was living at Oxford at the time. You were not wrong there; but I interpreted your comment to mean that it placed him too far from London. He often traveled by train several times a week between Oxford and London, could easily have used the subway system or walked to the East End (speaking only of access, not as proof that he did) and was only a train ride from his vacation spot at Beachy Head as well or from the family home at Guildford. None of them
more than 2 hours away, he had plenty of opportunity there. Someone may come up with something to place him in the East End or elsewhere at the time of the murders (I
provide evidence that he was elsewhere during one of the days in question, specifically in the morning and till mid afternoon at least), but so far none of the biographers appears to have done so, including Morton Cohen, who was very
thorough with the detail.
As to anagrams -- ahh, anagrams. Mr. Ryder may be right; not being a mathematician I didn’t discuss the mathematical possibilities but spend much time in AOLC on “the problem.” I believe Dodgson’s “rule of three” and “double rule of three”, both unexplained, point directly to the notion that more than x anagrams can be derived from the same material, and provide several examples in the book. What I do find, however, is that there are many readers who believe I am on to something given the large number of anagrams I “found” and the identification of what I believe were clues left by him when the readers were at certain passages, that even if he did not write the exact anagrams I “found,” as a consummate wordsmith and inveterate word game player, it is certainly possible that he incorporated anagrams with similar themes in his works for some nefarious reason. If he did, it certainly changes our assessment of the person.
Would those not be anti-social acts? Would they not be directed to his audience -- children and their mothers? Of course he could always respond “who me?” if confronted with one as he knew full well it was a deniable “offense.” Mr. Ryder and others choose to agree. Dodgson had a complete defense team of adoring readers at the time and still does. Unfortunately, just as one cannot prove (beyond a reasonable doubt) that they ARE there, one cannot prove that they are not.
Again, I hope you’ll read at least the JTR book.
Regards.
Richard Wallace |
Author: Sarah R. Jacobs
Tuesday, 21 November 2000 - 11:27 am | | Mr. Wallace--
You refer to "penile manipulation" in the manuscript version of Alice's Adventures Underground. Where is this "penile manipulation"? I have a facsimile of the manuscript before me right this moment, and I own it, so please take your time and explain where it is.
Also, have you considered the idea that, like most mathematical geniuses of any time, CHarles Lutwidge Dodgson suffered form a bit of Asperger's Sydrome? I think that this differential diagnosis goes towards explaining Dodgson's infatuation with the camera, with mathematics, etc. Also, it goes a longer way towards explaining his "arrested emotional development" than any instance of child abuse might go. Many autistics and persons with Asperger's seek out the company of clean, well-mannered children to that of adults. It was a metter of not being able to deal with the politics of living as an adult, which is evidenced throughout his life. Dodgson found boys to be nasty and dirty (he said so himself), and so he chose girls. With little girls as his primary social group, he took up photography. The thing to photograph was femal nudes, and, experiencing the lack of propriety-gaguing skills typical in a person with Asperger's Syndrome, he took nude photos of the girls.
His lack of this sort of gaguing acumen shows up again when he makes Alice the hero of his book. He makes no overt statement that he wishes the book to be feminist, so we must assume that he simply \i[does not know that, in the time in which he is living, "girls are not the heroes of books"}.
This is not to say that he might not have wanted to touch Alice Liddell inappropriately, but I don't think he did. |
Author: Diana
Wednesday, 22 November 2000 - 08:08 am | | | I don't have in depth knowledge of Lewis Carrol, but I am a special education teacher working in an autistic unit and your comments on Asperger's are right on target. Like most autistics the Asperger's subgroup have trouble with social skills. Unlike most autistics their intelligence level is normal. |
Author: James Harper
Wednesday, 21 February 2001 - 05:17 pm | | Anagrams themselves aside, it seems to me that there are some very real problems with the validity of Mr. Wallace's suggestions. For a start, his claim to be the only person who has put forward a suspect 'psychologically capable' of committing the murders is astonishing and simply wrong. There are hundreds of suspects whose champions have painted an appropriate psychological portrait of them.
Furthermore, such psychological portraits are of strictly limited value. For a start, as any modern-day lawyer could tell you, it isn't hard to find a psychologist who will happily testify to the sanity or madness of the person in question, depending on what is asked of them.
Besides, there were undoubtedly hundreds of people in London in 1888 capable of the murders. The important point is that the vast majority of them were clearly not Jack the Ripper. To simply add another person whose profile fits is to add nothing at all to the debate.
I do have to wonder why you went to the trouble of 'solving' all those anagrams if you were simply trying to point out that it was possible. I could have told you that, without the bother of writing a book. If the solutions are mere possibilities, then once again they add nothing to the quest for Jack the Ripper.
Besides, I'm keen to find the serial killer with paedophile tendencies that preys on mature women. It's a rare one certainly. The facts that attract a person to youth are not present in middle-aged prostitutes, and quite frankly I think it's a little naive to suggest he killed older women because of what they had become- it's far more likely that such a killer would slay children in order to prevent their eventual corruption.
Child abuse says nothing. Certainly a large number of serial killers were abused as children but there are many, many more abused children who have not turned into one. There is a world of difference between abusing children because you were abused and killing people because of it.
Anyway. |
Author: Seth Bock
Wednesday, 04 April 2001 - 01:10 pm | | I am relatively new to the Ripper/Dodgson debate. Yet, having thoroughly read Mr. Wallace's books, (several times)and having cross-referenced his assertions with everything I could find on the Ripper murders, as well as Dodgson, I have to say that Dodgson is far and away the most likely suspect. It is not to say that the other suspects were not capable of murder, that they were. Rather, in Dodgson we a modus operandi totally contiguous with the deviant and almost playfully artistic methods of the Ripper.
The brilliance of Dodgson as a Ripper suspect is that he is the last person anyone in Victorian London would have suspected. This is truly a case of the Emperor's new clothing. Where ever Carroll (Dodgson) went he was enshrouded by a mist of young children.
Getting back to the other suspects. There is a striking similarity between many of the proposed suspects that is not elemental to the portrait of Jack the Ripper, as proposed by Richard Wallace. To generalize, their collective M.Os, as portrayed in the literature, tend to mythologize suspects as shady monsters lurking in the dark. Each (not every) author tries to show how explicitly unstable their suspect is. Given, many of these dudes were probably very unstable. The goal however, is not simply to produce the scariest suspect; but rather to find a personality that is capable of producing the subtext of the Ripper crimes (not only what the Ripper wanted us to see but also what he was hiding). For instance: who had a hatred of authority and prostitutes, who loved writing puzzles, who owned books on Masonic rituals and surgery, who led a double life, (Carroll/Dodgson,) who led a mysterious and sexually repressed lifestyle....
What is overwhelmingly evident is that the person who committed the Ripper crimes was not only ruthless and cunning but also zenful in their ability to craft a plot and execute it with precision. This was not your average psychopath or serial killer, this was a mastermind conducting a gory opera.
What is lacking in many suspects however, and what Wallace has provided in profuse detail. Is an actual comprehensive character portrait that meshes with the known facts of the case. |
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood
Thursday, 05 April 2001 - 07:02 am | | Dear Mr. Bock:
I'm most impressed by your championing of Lewis Carroll as Jack and that you have read Mr. Wallace's book several times. Some might of course disagree with your point: "...the deviant and almost playfully artistic methods of the Ripper." insofar as even Damien Hirst might find little artistry in the condition of the bodies. Your suggestion that: "The brilliance of Dodgson as a Ripper suspect is that he is the last person anyone in Victorian London would have suspected." is perhaps inaccurate: in the past suspects on these boards such as Winston Churchill, Sooty, Howdy Doody and Weedon Grossmith have been suggested. All of these with the possible exception of Sooty would be more likely to fill the bill as last person anyone would have suspected. Might I suggest that you read more books on the Ripper and also consult that invaluable book on Carroll "In the Shadow of the Dreamchild" (Karoline Leach, pub. Peter Owen and available via Amazon and all good bookshops.) Ms. Leach also posts occsionally on the Maybrick Diary boards where her knowledge and command of her subject are a wonder to behold. Alternatively I would suggest you visit the Carroll E-List at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lewiscarroll wherein you will find (in the words of Mr. Patrick Moore) many "independent thinkers" such as yourself. |
Author: Avril Sprintall
Thursday, 05 April 2001 - 04:54 pm | | | May I suggest as a starting point that you read The Jack the Ripper A-Z and then formulate (like many of us)what are considered more "realistic" theories. I am in no way denegrating your opinion because none of us know who Jack really was, but as Mr Birchwood seemed to imply, there are many other suspects with a more likely pedigree. |
Author: Seth Bock
Tuesday, 17 April 2001 - 01:50 pm | | Dear Mr. Birchwood and Ms. Sprintall,
Thank you for the pointers. Actually, I have read the A to Z book, and others. I have been through the Case Book with a fine tooth comb. I have read Karolyne Leach's book, several Carroll biographies, Ph.D. Dissertations on the semiotics of Alice.... I am not an expert on Lewis Carroll, but I can write confidently that nothing I have come across in the literature has excluded him from my search for a Ripper Suspect.
My apologies for emphasizing my ideas too strongly, "the last person anyone...would have suspected." I was using "last" figuratively. The fact still stands that Lewis Carroll was trusted by virtually everyone, with few exceptions.
In terms of "more realistic theories," I guess would appreciate your thoughts on how to reduce the Ripper crimes to something more realistic, especially when there is an entire industry built around it. Does realistic mean mainstream?
What I found most convincing about Mr. Wallace's books is their breadth of detail and mindful rigor. Furthermore, like all good science, he points out the weakness of his theories. What I found truly frightening was reading Alice and Carroll and Ripper biographies through the filter of Wallace's research. When all is boiled down, I think Carroll has the necessary pedigree.
Finally, I am curious to know if you have read Richard Wallace's books. It is much easier to refute something you haven't experienced. If you haven't read his works please do. I would enjoy your thoughts/criticisms.
Sincerely,
Seth |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 17 April 2001 - 02:42 pm | | Well Seth,
I'll try anything once! A man who could put together a religio-geometrical parallelogram via a mirror darkly!Interesting idea, Seth, but where does one go from there? Unless...Lewis Carroll,
D'Onston, and let's say, Condor, were part of an unholy trinity! A composite 'Superman'?
Hollywood! Naw, too imaginative...
Rosemary |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Tuesday, 17 April 2001 - 10:10 pm | | To be honest, I was rather astonished to see the bibliography of Wallace's book. It listed at least 90-100 books & articles, including some excellent sources. I never would have dreamed that such an odd theory would have been so deeply researched. The end product, however, is without a doubt the strangest book I've ever read...and I've seen some weird ones, including Churchward's Lost Continent of Mu, Raymond Bernard's The Hollow Earth, etc. etc.
As way of example: Wallace takes the following paragraph from Carroll's Nursery Alice:
"So she wandered away, through the wood, carrying the ugly little thing with her. And a great job it was to keep hold of it, it wriggled about so. But at last she found out that the proper way was, to keep tight hold of its left foot and its right ear."
And turns it into:
"She wriggled about so! But at last Dodgson and Bayne found a way to keep a hold of the fat little whore. I got a tight hold of her and slit her throat, left ear to right. It was tough, wet, disgusting, too. So weary with it, they threw up. --Jack the Ripper." (p 169)
And on & on for about 300 pages of similar anagrams (most of them quite filthy-mouthed) as well as the standard theorizing & profiling of his suspect---the sort of thing that one sees in most Ripper books.
After an article about Mr. Wallace's theory appeared in the American periodical Harper's magazine (Nov 1996), two gentlemen sent in the following letter to the editor:
Dear Editor,
We enjoyed Richard Wallace's revealing "Malice in Wonderland" reading from your November issue. It soon became clear to us, though, that the author was trying to hint at something...perhaps even unburden himself of a great weight. He seemed obsessed with anagrams. Could that be some kind of clue? Sure enough, the very first paragraph of his article contains a grisly confession, thinly veiled in an anagram.
Rearranging the letters of:
This is my story of Jack the Ripper, the man behind Britain's worst unsolved murders. It is a story that points to the unlikeliest of suspects: a man who wrote children's stories. That man is Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, author of such beloved books as Alice in Wonderland.
we arrive at:
The truth is this: I, Richard Wallace, stabbed and killed a muted Nicole Brown in cold blood, severing her throat with my trusty shiv's strokes. I set up Orenthal James Simpson, who is utterly innocent of this murder.
P.S. I also wrote Shakespeare's sonnets, and a lot of Francis Bacon's works too.
Painfully obvious once you spot it, isn't it? Off with his head!
Francis Heaney,
New York, N.Y.
Guy Jacobson
Bridgewater, N.J. |
Author: Seth Bock
Wednesday, 18 April 2001 - 11:25 am | | Yes, I agree. Many of Wallace's anagrams are too long to be reliable from a statistical perspective. However, there are interesting questions that lend a lot of credibility to Wallace's assertions. For one, why did a known anagramatist(is that what they're called?)underline and italicize seemingly random segments of text? Two, if he did include anagrams in his children's literature what did they say? Three, assuming he did embed anagrams in his works, why not conceal the dark aspects of his life? It is more inconceivable that a true master of word games, and especially anagrams, would not incorporate these "pillow problems" into his most popular literature, n'est ce pas?
So if we can concur that it is not a stretch of the imagination to presume that Wallace found actual anagrams (not to say that he provided the correct solution)then we can move on to the other aspects of the case. These include whether Dodgson had the impetus and MO to commit murder. Secondly, to what extent do the pure facts and hard evidence of the Ripper crimes mirror what we know about Dodgson? Having read all the major works on Dodgson there is nothing, so far, that confounds the theory. Yes, it is preposterous, but how many preposterous events have occurred in history? OJ Simpson, yes, that is one example, still unproved!
There are many arguments against Dodgson as suspect but what hard facts are there? Yes, we cherish Carroll, but who was Dodgson and why was he not capable of murder? If the entirety of Wallace's theory was based on anagrams I would have to concede to his critics. Quite contrary, the bulk of Wallace's work (including his first Dodgson biography) focuses on understanding Charles Dodgson.
If something can not be ruled out it clear doesn't mean it occurred. As for Dodgson it is not entirely clear, but in the cloud of mythology that surrounds his life there are several disconcerting themes. |
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood
Wednesday, 18 April 2001 - 01:03 pm | | Hi Seth:
I believe that if you eliminate the anagrams from Mr. Wallace's theory (remembering of course that similar anagrams have been held to prove that MJ Druit and JK Stephen were rippers in consort) then you can boil the theory down to CLD being an interesting and in many ways unusual man who was alive at the right time, had the opportunity to travel to London and had no obvious alibi for the crimes. However this sort of thinking could and has caused a great many otherwise respectable people to be accused, notably Mr. Weedon Grossmith co-author of "Diary of a Nobody" who for obscure reasons never satisfactorily explained was hailed on these boards not only as Jack but as the writer of the Diary of Jack the Ripper in order to throw suspicion on James Maybrick. Now the Grossmith family are interesting: Weedon's brother George being prominent in the Savoy Opera and George's sons Lawrence and George Junior being prominent in London Theatre in the 1920's and aquaintances of PG Wodehouse (the greatest writer of English in the 20thC.) This does not make their ancestor into Jack the Ripper and similar maunderings with no evidence other than the anecdotal and unlikely surmises does not make CLD the ripper with or without assistance.
You say: "? Yes, we cherish Carroll, but who was Dodgson and why was he not capable of murder? " We are all capable of murder for what might seem good reason but this is a long way from assuming that CLD could plan and commit the Whitechapel murders. |
Author: Seth Bock
Wednesday, 18 April 2001 - 05:10 pm | | Hi Peter,
It would be all to easy to mistakenly presume that you're not a student of CLD, because, clearly you are. However, I would like to know where specifically your interest lies. Having immersed myself in the life of CLD I will continue to make the argument CLD was more than an interesting and unusual man with no alibi. I have traversed many of the books and articles Richard Wallace used in his psychobiography and can see why his theory is anything but preposterous. Having done this I can also comment thoroughly on the weak points of his works. I would agree that one weak point is the anagram, for reasons well defined above. This, however does not discount his theory. Alternatively, it provides some insight into why Dodgson might have chosen anagrams as the vehicle for his secret. Namely, that one can reveal anything they desire, in a format that is translucent to the tools of criminologists. This theme is played out over and over again throughout Dodgson's literary world and perhaps that of the Ripper, to quote: "catch me if you can." Thousands of pages of text support the assertion that Dodgson was cryptic and plagued by dark inner fantasies. As scientists, all Ripperologists should be open to following Wallace's lead until, at least, this case can be disproved. Alternatively, what I read in the Casebook are commentaries based on predetermined beliefs, not rigorous scrutiny, an unbiased open dialogue. To suggest that Dodgson is not a viable candidate because his case can not be proven, rather than disproved, is to create a logic that would equally discredit Maybrick and his counterparts. Until someone presents cold hard facts he deserves as much consideration as any Ripper suspect. |
Author: Mike David
Wednesday, 18 April 2001 - 07:24 pm | | Hi Seth.
As a newcomer here, with a fair knowledge of the main lines of Carroll studies (but much to learn about Jack the Ripper!), I have been very much interested to encounter, for the first time, someone who is prepared to take Richard Wallace's theories seriously.
I would be intrigued to know how you have arrived at your conclusions. Which biographies besides Karoline Leach's have you read - Lennon, Clark, Southern, Cohen, Bakewell? And what was it in them or in Carroll's own writings which leads you to prefer Wallace's analysis to Leach's or, say, Cohen's or Southern's (which I understand provides a sort of precedent for Wallace's ideas on CLD's sexuality)?
Regards
Mike |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 19 April 2001 - 06:15 am | | Hi Peter,
I think there is a subtle difference between:
a) researching into something or somebody that one finds fascinating, and hoping to share some of that interest with others, for the fun of it, while the fun lasts, and
b) actually publishing and seeking to make money out of a full-blown theory, including and excluding facts at will, and according to how well or poorly they fit with one's case.
While a) may be an unscholarly irritation to you in the short term, surely even you can work out that b) is the greater long term affront to serious scholarship and professional writing.
Your remarks on WWG make it sound as if you don't recognise or appreciate the distinction, which would be a pity if true, because you may be missing out a wee bit on the fun side of life.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Seth Bock
Thursday, 19 April 2001 - 08:56 am | | Hi Mike,
I appreciate your train of thought. Forgive me for not having my notes on hand (I don't typically carry this stuff to work). Actually, in addition to Cohen, Leach, Greenacre etc, I found the annotated versions of the Looking Glass and Alice, etc, to be informative. In general, Carroll's biographies have not delved into the world of fantasy and base most of their assertions on the diaries, letters and previous biographies. There was one book that gave me the chills. This is a book of essays written by various semioticians (I forget the precise name, but it's in Wallace's bibliography). Although not biographical in a strict sense, it provides in someways an unbiased view (several at that) of Dodgson's mind. After reading this book it was clear to me that the layers of Dodgson's personality were only lightly penetrated in the other biographies (with the exclusion of biographies such as Greenacre and Wallace). This was not a man whose interest in encryption ended with the Sunday crossword, rather a man completely obsessed with creating paradoxes, illusions, mythology and deception. Dodgson succeeded in encrypting his inner narrative while he was alive, even his diary entries are replete with avoidance. However, I believe there is a palpable and bizarre gestalt the more mainstream literature has failed to address appropriately. The gestalt I am referring to is that of a man whose personality was split and whose ego battled intense pain. Dodgson did name his disease and couch it in cute terms such as "pillow problems" or the "night time inconveniences" of Rugby.
Even though Wallace's books are artistic representations (as are all biographies) I find it most revealing of the essence of Dodgson's soul. I think Leach is a pyrotechnic writer whose thoughts on any subject are convincing. I had to Wallace's book as soon as I finished "In the Shadow," and then had to re-read both together to understand how two entirely dissimilar portraits of a single person could co-exist. Wallace and Leach are both heavy handed in their approach to deciphering the contents of the Shadow and require strict and critical reading. What I found in this shadow was a highly sophisticated man with significant and unresolved sorrow and rage who I believe is capable of the Ripper crimes, entirely without the aid of anagrams. And when I use the word capable I don't use it lightly.
Mike, I'm glad to have found someone that has read his books and is willing to discuss them. Please share your thoughts.
Best,
Seth |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 19 April 2001 - 10:08 am | | Hi Seth,
Sorry to jump in here so abruptly. One point of clarification.
You write:
"There was one book that gave me the chills. This is a book of essays written by various semioticians (I forget the precise name, but it's in Wallace's bibliography). Although not biographical in a strict sense, it provides in someways an unbiased view (several at that) of Dodgson's mind."
If this is indeed what these essays do, then I suspect they are not written by "semioticians." Semiotics would seek to read the text as a system or network of signs and conventional structures and place it in a position of structural difference with other texts as a way of determining some of its formal "meanings," but it would stop well short of concluding anything at all about the author's mind. If, on the other hand, these were psychoanalytic readings that might have used some small bit of semiotics early in their analyses (as your own summaries suggest) then speculative conclusions about Dodgson's desires (or at least the desires of his texts as they interact with the desires of specific readers) might be implied or even offered. But even these conclusions would, it seems to me, remain speculative.
Just a small point attempting to clarify precisely what sort of reading is being undertaken here.
All the best,
--John |
Author: Seth Bock
Thursday, 19 April 2001 - 01:44 pm | | Hi John,
Thank you for your concise clarification of semiotics. The essays I referred to are in fact written by semioticians (if that's what they're called). And you are right about coming to conclusions about the inner workings of Dodgson's mind. They did not go into that territory at all. I was actually hoping they would, but alas, they did not.
What I hope I implied, and I'll have to re-read what I wrote earlier, is that in my reading I was able to gain insight into Dodgson's mind, even though the essays did not even tread upon that territory. They did however delve deeply into the structures and logic of the texts which was absolutely fascinating. Dodgson was way beyond his time.
As for speculation, that is the science of Ripperology. With a speculatory science the best we can hope for is elegance and succinctness.
Good luck with your course!
Seth |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 19 April 2001 - 05:18 pm | | Hey there, Seth
Ah, I see. I'm afraid I had read your earlier sentence concerning the book of essays:
"Although not biographical in a strict sense, it provides in someways an unbiased view (several at that) of Dodgson's mind."
as suggesting the essays were doing this. Thanks for the clarification about your own speculations.
Yes indeed, we here, like Freud in his later essays (after, say, Beyond the Pleasure Prinicple) are admittedly engaged in speculative acts of reading and interpretation and often are playing our own little game of fort/da. Sometimes we write as if we are not and then I suppose it becomes our readers' task to bring us back from the edge of our own rhetoric.
All the best,
--John |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Thursday, 19 April 2001 - 09:36 pm | | Dear Seth,
Sounds pretty much like a man who could create a
paradox with his own death? Any thoughts on this?
Rosemary :-) |
Author: Mike David
Saturday, 21 April 2001 - 05:40 am | | Hi Seth.
Your dismissal of CLD's diaries and letters as sources of evidence in favour of 'chilling' essays on aspects of his work has pointed me towards understanding where you are coming from.
I have always held that the key to Person X's character is to be found in what Person X says and (especially) does; if you instead see it as lying in ideologised interpretations of Person X's fictional writings by people who never knew Person X and are concerned principally with peddling their pet theories, it is small wonder that we differ in our conclusions.
In case my first post carried a suggestion that I might be prepared to give Wallace any credence myself, let me set the record straight by saying at once that I consider his scattergun cod-psychological theories and the black parody of scholarship which constitutes his methodology to be the most risible nonsense ever committed to paper on the subject of either Jack the Ripper or Lewis Carroll. Wallace has produced what I think is the worst book on any subject and the greatest 'affront to serious scholarship', as Caz puts it, that I have ever encountered.
If Wallace's aim is simply, as you have suggested, to demonstrate that his suspect cannot be proved not to have been JtR, this (to echo Peter's point) can be said with equal accuracy of a good forty percent of the then population of the UK and hardly needs a 300-page cryptographer's nightmare to support it. Sadly, though, even this modest aim is counter to the facts. Perhaps we could have a few for a change:
1) The Ripper is described by eyewitnesses as a man of medium height or below, of chunky build, with fair, brown or reddish hair and moustache, aged about thirty.
CLD was 56, six feet tall, thin, clean-shaven and grey-haired. Thomas Vere Bayne (his accomplice according to Wallace) was 59 and of similar build with grey side-whiskers.
2) Whoever the Ripper was, he must have been agile and physically fit. Quite apart from his age, CLD was incapacitated and at times immobilised throughout 1888 by 'synovitis' of the knee joint. Bayne, the 'accomplice', three years older, suffered severely from back trouble, reporting himself at times during 1888 'barely able to stand'.
3) CLD had no alibi? Check one of those biographies you have read so avidly, Seth:
On the night of Emma Smith's murder (a Ripper crime according to Wallace) CLD was laid up with his knee trouble and unable to move. For the Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Eddowes murders he was on holiday in Eastbourne with an actress, who was his constant companion. Bayne meanwhile spent the whole of September in France.
4) Wallace's 'psychological profile' derives 90% from his own imagination. His only point of contact with reality is the not unreasonable proposition that CLD may well have been sexually abused at public school. Unless all abused teenagers turn into rage-filled gay serial killers his profiling is, as Mrs Malaprop might have said, purely suppository.
5) His anagrams prove only that a language with a vocabulary of forty thousand words and an alphabet of twenty-six letters often has to use the same letters to make different words. Hundreds of alternative anagrams can be made from Wallace's own selections.
Does Wallace seriously believe that anyone would construct sentences like 'Dodgson and Bayne seethe, tune, hone a weird way - any way - to laud my father's holy work and let the hate vent', think to himself 'Yes, that encapsulates my message to the world!' and then spend night after night working out anagrams of them to put in his next children's book so that no-one would know they were there?
Would you buy a second-hand theory from this man?
The theory is cod-psychological garbage, pure and simple.
All this has been said before. Wallace has been demolished by Karoline Leach in the latest Ripper Notes, by Edward Wakeling in the Lewis Carroll Review, and in numerous online reviews (one of which quotes that memorable OJ anagram). Does it really need to be said again?
But I have no wish whatever to have 'the last word'; so please say anything you like afterwards.
Regards
Mike
P.S. Rearranging the letters of 'Jabberwocky: 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves', and omitting a T to bring the number of characters (including punctuation marks) down to the mystic 42, reveals an encoded literary review: 'Wallace's J the R book: grubby and witless sh*t.'
How's that for precognition? |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 22 April 2001 - 05:41 am | | Dear Mike/Seth,
Any idea why he changed into "Lewis Carroll"?
Rosemary |
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