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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 **
THE NEWS FROM WHITECHAPEL: Jack the Ripper in the 'Daily Telegraph' (Chisholm, DiGrazia and Yost, 2002)
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Media: Ripper Media:
THE NEWS FROM WHITECHAPEL: Jack the Ripper in the 'Daily Telegraph' (Chisholm, DiGrazia and Yost, 2002)
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Monday, 17 June 2002 - 10:19 pm |        | ??paperback, to be published Fall 2002.
This is an annotated transcription of the major 'Telegraph' stories concerning the canonical Ripper murders, with material drawn from Met and HO files, past and present Ripper books, contemporary newspapers and the authors' own researches. It is designed to be read as a twofold work; the reader can access full newspaper articles for each murder or can refer to footnotes and commentary which correct what the papers got wrong or, sometimes, explain events and items which were common knowledge in 1888. It also features the previously unknown photograph of Annie and John Chapman first published by Neal Shelden.
Orders for 'The News From Whitechapel' are now being taken on amazon.com and at the publisher's website, www.mcfarlandpub.com, where the cover art can be seen. I would post it here were I more able with the arcana of computers! |
Author: alex chisholm
Monday, 17 June 2002 - 10:38 pm | | Nice piece of shameless self-publicising, Christopher-Michael.
All the Best
alex |
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Tuesday, 18 June 2002 - 09:28 am | | Many thanks, Alex - glad to know you've got my back!
Now get out there and buy the book, you Ripperologists. . .else the Mystic Knights of Whitechapel (the men who will not be blamed for nothing) will put the Curse of Mitre Square on thee! |
Author: Christopher T George
Tuesday, 18 June 2002 - 02:21 pm | | Hi, CM:
Excellent to see that your book is nearly out! I am sure all your hard work will pay off. Congratulations to all three of you: yourself, Alex Chisholm, and Dave Yost. I am certain the book will be a great resource to those of us in the field.
I see the design on the cover of the book shows a tombstone-shaped cross superimposed over an image of Whitechapel. A clever and intriguing design. Sure to make the book a collector's item for the interesting cover design alone!
All the best
Chris |
Author: Tom Wescott
Tuesday, 18 June 2002 - 02:50 pm | | Wow! What a nice surprise. I didn't expect your book to be out so soon. I'll be ordering my copy very soon from amazon.com...Unless, of course, some SIGNED copies are going to be made available?
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Author: alex chisholm
Thursday, 20 June 2002 - 02:43 pm | | Thank you for the supportive comments, Gents. They are greatly appreciated.
Tom, I’m not sure if signed copies will be made available, but we’ll try to clarify this and get back to you.
All the Best
alex |
Author: Yazoo
Friday, 21 June 2002 - 11:23 am | | Casebookers!
Remember:
If you buy this book from Amazon.com use the ad link from the Casebook so that Stephen gets some revenue from Amazon.
And of course signed copies are indeed a most welcome idea. Perhaps the authors and Stephen could negotiate something with Amazon where all parties can get their just and due revenue -- sell or auction signed copies from Amazon perhaps?
Yaz the Financial Meddler
(P.S., The same Yaz who is probably one jump ahead of the people who are prosecuting the Enron villains...and quickly losing ground! Good thing I'm a follower of Satchel Paige: "Never look over your shoulder; they might be gaining on you!!") |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 21 June 2002 - 03:27 pm | | That is useful advice on using the Casebook link when using Amazon, Yahoo. Willco.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Jim DiPalma
Wednesday, 11 September 2002 - 06:15 pm | | For those weary of the trite, timeworn format typical of so many books on the Jack the Ripper case, "The News from Whitechapel" offers a fresh, exciting new perspective. Rather than a dull recital of the particulars, followed by a weak circumstantial case against yet another unlikely suspect, "The News From Whitechapel" relates the story of the murders as told in The Daily Telegraph, the world's largest daily newspaper in 1888.
An informative, imagery-rich foreword by Paul Begg that includes a brief history of the Daily Telegraph capably prepares the reader for what is to follow. Each of the canonical five murders is covered, with the testimony from each session of the coroners' inquests heavy with footnotes. The footnotes are used to point out inaccuracies in the press coverage, cross-reference testimony from other witnesses, explain some anachronism, or highlight a critical point. The reader is thus presented with a wealth of information that serves as an invaluable guide to reading and understanding the inquest testimony. If that were all "The News from Whitechapel" had to offer, it would be a must-read. But there is much, much more.
At the end of each chapter, the authors provide informed commentary on many of the more perplexing and contentious points of the Ripper case, including Stride's canonicity, the mythical (?) coins at Chapman's feet and her time of death, what Patrick Mulshaw saw, the Lusk kidney, and so on. The commentary by Dave Yost on Stride's murder and the Long/Cadoche timing conundrum were the most coherent, credible explanations for those two mini-mysteries that this writer has ever read.
"The News from Whitechapel" provides a wealth of detailed information on the case in a highly enjoyable format. It deserves a place on the bookshelf of every student of the case, from the casual to the serious researcher. Highly recommended. |
Author: alex chisholm
Thursday, 12 September 2002 - 06:54 pm | | Dear supremely intelligent, discerning, and sophisticated Jim
Christopher-Michael, Dave, and I really must thank you for your glowing recommendation of “News From Whitechapel.” Even we can’t wait to read it now!
Seriously though, we are very pleased you found the work worthy of such comment. If, as we hope, others find it anything like as commendable, we’ll be more than satisfied with the years of hard slog.
Best Wishes
alex
PS – I believe Christopher-Michael is arranging your backhander. |
Author: Jim DiPalma
Thursday, 12 September 2002 - 11:03 pm | | Hi All,
Alex - right, keys to the yacht and condo in Barbados are mine this weekend, as we agreed? 
Seriously, you guys did a tremendous job. Well done!
Jim |
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Wednesday, 25 September 2002 - 12:21 pm | | The News From Whitechapel is now for sale. Dave, Alex and myself have all received our complimentary copies along with a letter from McFarland stating that, although the 'official' publishing date is January 2003 (for reviewers with a long lead-time), the book is now being sold. So go to your local book shop, Amazon.com or to the publisher direct at www.mcfarlandpub.com.
For UK readers, NFW is slated to have a November 2002 sale date.
We have enjoyed researching and writing this book, and hope you enjoy it as well. Look for reviews here on the Casebook and in (I hope) the October issues of RN and Ripperologist.
CMD |
Author: Jon
Saturday, 28 September 2002 - 11:40 am | | Destined to be an outstanding contribution to the subject. News stories are an invaluable resource, and though they may require a little work on behalf of the researcher, evaluating, comparing, and discriminating we must always give them due consideration within the whole scheme of data which unfortunately is already too thin.
Many a little 'gem' can be discovered in news reports and they provide a great insight to the times.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Brenda L. Conklin
Sunday, 20 October 2002 - 03:55 pm | | I just finished my copy and enjoyed it thoroughly. It was interesting to sit down and read Joe Barnett's (my fave suspect) inquest testimony again. It amazes me how willing he was to attribute multiple lovers to MJK, how boastful he sounds (in print at least) that he saved her from walking the streets. He didn't seem very protective of her reputation, and doesn't seem like someone who is in mourning at all. He even admits that she was fond of another man while she was with him!
Another item I wanted to mention....I have read the arguments here before as to how there is doubt that Catherine Eddowes ever slept in the Dorset Street shed. It is also pointed out how the women in that area seemed to know her, but knew nothing about her life or John Kelly. Interesting to me was the night before she was killed, Kate sent John Kelly to the lodging house while she supposedly went to the workhouse. It came out at the inquest that the next morning, when they had breakfast together, John Kelly states he was surprised to see her that early, and there is a few general statements regarding this during the inquest, how it was surprising for him to have been able to catch up with her that early. I submit for your thoughts the theory that on the nights that John and Kate had to sleep apart, she lied about going to the workhouse, instead taking shelter at places like the Dorset Street shed. This would offer her freedom to do as she pleased and maybe pick up extra prostitution money or at the very least maybe some alcohol. John Kelly comes across as being a caring enough lover that he would not have approved of her doing this and would have worried for her safety. This would also account for the fact that Catherine was acquainted with the "Shed Women", that they recognised her, yet they knew nothing personal about her, even that she had a partner.
I would like the thank the authors of the book for getting this information to us...I for one would never be able to hit the libraries searching for old newspapers to read....time, time, TIME!! How very convenient to have it all there, in one book. Thank you very much and I hope you make a million from your book! I will recommend it to friends, although my friends have become worried about me and this "little hobby" of mine. ;-) |
Author: The Viper
Sunday, 20 October 2002 - 06:43 pm | | Brenda,
There are no good grounds to disagree with the accepted wisdom that Catherine Eddowes spent the Friday night of 28-29th September anywhere other than at the Mile End casual ward. Apart from the obvious police procedure of checking out John Kelly's account, the East London Observer printed this Story, claiming to have interviewed the superintendent of the casual ward.
Though the above report suggests that Kate had spent the night in the Mile End workhouse on previous occasions, it cannot be used to discount the idea that she spent nights sleeping rough. That said, I'm rather sceptical of this whole "shed" story in the Daily Telegraph. There was a full discussion of the matter a couple of months ago on another board.
Regards, V. |
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Sunday, 20 October 2002 - 09:43 pm | | Brenda -
Thank you for your thoughts on NFW, and I am glad you enjoyed it. I should mention that Alex, Dave and myself are currently in the process of setting up an NFW website where we will put all the Telegraph stories we had to cut from the book. They will be annotated as the book is, and with luck, we will also have time to contribute a few more entries as we did with the various essays at the end of each chapter. Watch this space for further news.
And, while I find your theory intriguing, as my esteemed colleague V notes, there are so many half-truths and dead ends in the Telegraph (as well as with the Star, East London Advertiser and so on) that pulling one small bit such as the 'shed' and using it to base a theory on is - while within the good old tradition of Odell, Farson and Knight - too slender a thread to hand the case upon.
But again, from Alex, Dave and myself, many thanks for purchasing the book, and we are very happy you liked it.
Cheers,
CMD |
Author: alex chisholm
Thursday, 21 November 2002 - 10:23 pm | | Evening All
Some of you might be interested to know that we’ve finally managed to get http://www.newsfromwhitechapel.com online.
The site contains the extracts of Daily Telegraph reporting on Whitechapel murder Sept. – Nov. 1888, which we had to leave out of the book. Other reports will be added as and when I manage to transcribe them.
Web design is really double Dutch to me, so the site is pretty basic. Still, we hope it will be of interest to some.
Best Wishes
alex |
Author: Jack Traisson
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 07:11 am | | Fantastic Alex!
Who cares about web site design, it's content that matters. Thank you for providing more primary source material. I am tired of reading Cornwell - and about Cornwell - and am glad of the change. Congradulations on the excellent book, and to Yost and CMD as well. These additional Daily Telgraph reports are most welcomed.
Cheers |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 09:36 am | | Hi, Alex, CM & Dave Yost (wherever you are):
Fabulous news. I am certain the website will be of great use to everyone researching the murders. Thanks for your thoughtfulness in placing this information on-line, and congratulations again on your book.
All the best
Chris |
Author: David O'Flaherty
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 09:41 am | | Alex,
Thanks so much for putting these reports up--I've got your page bookmarked in my browser.
Cheers,
Dave
PS I like the design. No fuss, easy to navigate, and fast load times. |
Author: Esther Wilson
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 09:48 am | | Alex--thanks so much for the link and I've bookmarked it as well. Looking forward to my time there. 
Esther |
Author: alex chisholm
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 10:02 am | | Hi Jack, Chris, Dave & Esther
Many thanks for your kind comments.
We (as in Christopher-Michael, Dave and I – not the Royal We) hope you all find something of interest in the reports.
Very Best Wishes
alex |
Author: The Viper
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 02:53 pm | | Nise one, Alex. A very impressive body of work incorporating not just the Ripper material, but other stories to help give the reader a wider perspective on events. That must have taken hundreds of hours worth of effort. Congratulations to you and your co-authors on both the book and the website.
Future writers on this subject should be particularly grateful for these Telegraph articles. When added to the documents online at the Casebook and other websites such as Magpie's there is now a formidable body of useful material available to today's Ripper researcher on the net.
Most modern authors write on a computer and increasingly most of them want to be online. In Britain the typical cost of a standard, internet phoneline connection to an ISP such as BT is around £200 a year. Add in £45 for the cost of our old friends Evans and Skinner's Ultimate JTR Sourcebook and JTR Letters From Hell and the researcher immediately has a core of original source material for a book for around £240 [about $375] (and that takes no account of the added benefits that internet access gives to the subscriber). Of course there will always be additional specific research costs, such as on an author's chosen suspect, but the bedrock is all there.
I read somewhere that Stewart Evans spent £1200 a few years ago just on having the PRO copy its source records for him (perhaps he will correct that figure if it is wrong). Anyhow, the cost benefit of his and Mr. Skinner's work to the rest of us is plain to see.
Typically a library will charge 20p (about $0.30) per sheet of A4 paper printed from a microfilm or microfiche - so readers can imagine how much it would cost to get all the Daily Telegraph material that Alex has just given us net users for no extra charge.
You don't need to spend $6 million researching a Ripper book. Access to original source has never been so cheap. That should be a spur to prospective authors everywhere.
Regards, V. |
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 03:45 pm | | V -
An illuminating discussion; I was unaware of the monetary difficulties in accessing some source material! Certainly, Alex deserves a hearty round of congratulations for his transcriptions of the Telegraph stories - as anyone involved in the Casebook Press Project can attest, such an endeavour, while satisfying, is hell on the eyes and fingers.
With regards to the NFW website, we will, of course, be adding footnotes to the stories there as and when time permits, so there will be incremental changes over time to make the website a companion to the book. We will, of course, make announcements here when a hefty amount of annotation is uploaded. In the meantime, thanks for all your compliments, and please don't hesitate to contact us about the site.
(oh, by the way - The News From Whitechapel makes an excellent Christmas gift. Why not buy one now? Hell, buy two and we'll autograph them for you!)
CMD |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 03:58 pm | | Hi, Alex and CM:
A couple of thoughts. I would highly urge that you not use the Gothic type for the dates of the individual issues of the newspaper that you presently use. The Gothic type for the name of the newspaper is sufficient to give the old style look but to try to navigate from date to date it gets a bit tiresome, hard on the eyes, particularly with the purple and red color scheme. I hope this criticism will be taken in good part because you have provided a great resource, but I think ease on the eyes is a must. Another tip: if it is affordable, a search function would be great to add. There may be one already but I didn't see it.
All the best
Chris |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 04:14 pm | | Hi, CM & Alex:
Interesting already in your collection of DT reports is to cross-reference the report of the Havant, Portsmouth, murder of the boy Percy Searle in the issue of Nov. 27, 1888 with Ms. Cornwell's book, since this is one of the "non-Ripper murders" that Cornwell credits to her suspect, Walter Sickert. This despite the acknowledged differences between the Searle crime and the Ripper series, the boy's wounds comprising "four terrible gashes in his throat." As noted in the issue of Nov. 28, "At Havant Police-court, yesterday afternoon, Thomas Clark, an engine-fitter, was charged on suspicion with the murder of the boy Serle. It appeared that the accused was able to give a satisfactory account of himself, and, the police offering no evidence against him, he was discharged." Another boy, Robert Husband, was subsequently arrested for the murder (DT, Nov. 29) but I believe later released.
Cornwell, p. 293, makes the point that "Portsmouth is on England's south coast, directly across the English Channel from LeHavre, France" implying that it was on Sickert's route from London to his studio near Dieppe, France. I wonder if she checked whether there was ferry service from Portsmouth or Southampton to Le Havre?
Chris |
Author: Brian Schoeneman
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 08:40 pm | | Viper,
I have to admit that with all of the information on web, and the books I've purchased, I'm getting the itch to expand my little (although it's getting near 15 pages now!) research into the Met's response to the Ripper into a bigger thing. And to think it's possible without me needing to plop down the grand to get across to the PRO in person.
Stewart's books are great, and I will definitely be picking up Chris's new one.
B |
Author: alex chisholm
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 08:48 pm | | Hi V.
Many thanks for your comments, and your obvious appreciation of the costs, both financial and in time, involved in making such sources available.
Mind you, I remember cursing Evans & Skinner when they completely destroyed any potential resale value of the MEPO and HO files I and others had forked out for. Still, lovely chaps they are.
Good grief Chris, do you want jam on it? :-)
Seriously dear Sir, all suggestions or requests are welcome and will be accommodated, if or when ability and time allows.
Given my eye-strain over the years, I did think of letting you struggle on with the Gothic index pages. But, being a nice chap, I’ve taken pity on your tired old eyes and altered the pages in question. :-)
The search facility, however, is beyond me. I do have an index and search programme “Auscomp eNavigator Suite 6.0,” which I tried to get working on the site. After several days of miserable failure, however, I came to the realisation that, despite reading all the documentation and help pages, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.
So I agree a search facility would be most useful, but I’m sorry to say I can’t do it. I did say it was all double Dutch to me.
In addition to references to the Havant murder, I think some of the reports also give the lie to Ms Cornwell’s claims regarding the Gateshead murder, as Stewart has pointed out on another board.
Best Wishes
alex |
Author: Christopher T George
Saturday, 23 November 2002 - 09:00 am | | Hi, Alex:
Many thanks for making that modification to the type face on the website. I quite understand about your inability to provide a search facility at this time. The information you have provided on the case both in your book and on the site will prove to be a goldmine to researchers. We are already seeing the effects of the interesting nuggets contained on the site in several questions that occur to us, as reflected on these boards. Thanks also for mentioning that the Gateshead murder is covered in the DT reports on the site, another murder that Ms. Cornwell has implicated in her broadbrush approach to portraying Walter Sickert as the Whitechapel murderer.
Best regards
Chris |
Author: Billy Markland
Saturday, 23 November 2002 - 10:31 pm | | Alex, fine work!
Regarding a search engine for your site, you can try FreeFind. I use it at my genealogical site and it works fine for me. You can go demo at my site:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~familyinformation/
The home page for FreeFind is:
http://www.freefind.com
Thanks again for the sacrifice in time, effort, and money you made to make the site possible. And I will be looking for the book CMD!
Billy |
Author: alex chisholm
Saturday, 23 November 2002 - 10:43 pm | | Many thanks, Billy
I’ll have a look at the links you’ve provided and, if your search facility is simple enough for me to grasp, I’ll have a go at putting on the site.
Thanks again for your help
Best wishes
alex |
Author: Dave Yost
Thursday, 23 January 2003 - 07:09 pm | | Hi Guys,
Jim and Viper, your commentaries mean a lot to me - most kind.
I'm glad to hear that those who read our book enjoyed it and think so highly of it.
Dave |
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