Confessions of a Ripperologist
John Malcolm. Revised e-text version, 2007.
Full text below.
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS OF 1888
A Subjective Look into
The Mystery and Manipulation of a Victorian Tragedy
This book was originally printed in hardcover in May, 2005. It was reprinted in soft cover later in the year, with some slight adjustments. This Casebook version appears with some minor corrections. I would like to add acknowledgements to the following for their support:
Thank you Dixon Smith and Rupert Books, Howard Brown, Kelly Robinson, Loretta Lay, and Murder One.
"The search for Jack the Ripper's identity…has become a Rorschach test that often reveals more about the beholder than the subject beheld."
-John Douglas
The Cases that Haunt Us
The author, hard at work, consulting higher authorities.
For Dave Lee…
My best mate and former guv'nor of the Ten Bells.
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS OF 1888
A Subjective Look into
The Mystery and Manipulation of a Victorian Tragedy
Confessions of a Ripperologist
By John Malcolm
Original text and photographs ©2005 by John Malcolm
This book sprang from an article originally appearing in Ripperologist magazine, #41, June 2002 titled "Mary Kelly is Dead."
Special thanks to Dave Richardson, Mark Preston, Mo Magrey, Chris Lee, Terry Munday, Gillian Hinchliff and Laura Malcolm.
More thanks to Paul Begg and Ripperologist; Coral Kelly and The Whitechapel Society 1888 (formerly The Cloak and Dagger Club); Donald Rumbelow; Stewart Evans; Stephen P. Ryder and Casebook: Jack the Ripper; Nick Warren and Ripperana; Dan Norder and Ripper Notes; Chris Scott; Rob House; Amy and Patty Sanchez; Richie and Annie Peters; and Thelma & Louise.
There are radically differing opinions regarding many different aspects of this Victorian murder mystery; while we continuously expand and expound on these views, and in the process judge each other, it seems the only thing that we can be definitely certain of is uncertainty…
Although we are more than a hundred years removed, we should try to do our best to think from the inside: from the inside of the ghetto, the slums, the "abyss"…from the streets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields as they were in 1888.
We'll never know the whole story, but we've come a long way.
Or have we?
You may read the full-text of this book by clicking on the chapter links below:
