Murder as One of the Fine Arts

[John Adcock]

Was Jack the Ripper inspired by De Quincey's satire Murder as One of the Fine Arts? Perhaps Jack was creating a spectacle inspired by Thomas De Quincey, the English Opium Eater's, astounding creation Toad-in-the-hole :

“But now about the dinner and the club. The club was not particularly of my creation ; it arose, - pretty much as other similar associations for the propagation of truth and the communication of new ideas, - rather from the necessities of things than upon any one man’s suggestion. As to the dinner, if any man more than another could be held responsible for that, it was a member known amongst us by the name of Toad-in-the-hole. He was so called from his gloomy misanthropical disposition, which led him into constant disparagements of all modern murders as vicious abortions, belonging to no authentic school of art. The finest performances of our own age he snarled at cynically ; and at length this querulous humour grew upon him so much, and he became so notorious as a laudator temporis acti, that few people cared to seek his society. This made him still more fierce and truculent. He went about muttering and growling ; wherever you met him, he was soliloquising, and saying, “Despicable pretender - without grouping- without two ideas upon handling- without -” ; and there you lost him. At length existence seemed to be painful for him; he rarely spoke; he seemed conversing with phantoms in the air; his housekeeper informed us that his reading was nearly confined to “God’s Revenge upon Murder” by Reynolds, and a more ancient book of the same title, noticed by Sir Walter Scott in his “Fortunes of Nigel.” Sometimes, perhaps, he might read in the “Newgate Calendar” down to the year 1788; but he never looked into a book more recent.”

- The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey. Vol. XIII, Tales and Prose Phantasies. By David Masson. London : A. & C. Black, Soho Square, 1897. “Murder as one of the Fine Arts.” Page 56, 57.

[John Adcock]

Thomas De Quincey also wrote Three Memorable Murders a Sequel to “Murder as one of the Fine Arts” in 1854. The Opium Eater chose to open with an examination of the first serial murderer in England, John Williams, “this solitary artist,” perpetrator of the Ratcliff Highway Horrors perpetrated in London’s East End in 1811. “John Williams in one hour smote two houses with emptiness, exterminated all but two entire households, and asserted his own supremacy over all the children of Cain.” His tools were a mallet and a knife (razor according to De Quincey) which he used for cutting the throats of some of his victims. He committed suicide in gaol and was buried at a cross-roads after a stake was driven through the body with the maul that had committed the horrible deeds. Jack the Ripper could not have chosen a more suitable hero.

A (probably unconscious) connection between Williams and Jack was made by the author of a two part series in Famous Crimes (http://yesterdays-papers.blogspot.com/2007/07/harold-furniss-journalist-illustrator.html) circa 1902 entitled The Ratcliff Highway Horrors:

“Twice in its eventful history,” the writer began, “the East End of the metropolis experienced a veritable reign of terror through the monstrous deeds of one man. In 1811 the horrors perpetrated in Ratcliff Highway reduced that part of London almost to a state of siege, and history repeated itself in 1888 when a fiend in human shape roamed about its narrow courts and alleys scattering ruin and terror wherever he was drawn by his lust for blood.”

Coincidence ?

Three Memorable Murders is available in full-view via Google Book Search for those who care to read the original. Thrilling Cyclops illustrations from Famous Crimes article: The Ratcliff Highway Horrors.

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/ratcliff.jpg

[Caroline Morris]

Hi John,

I know of one ripper suspect who was talking to an acquaintance in early 1889 about De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium-Eater, in connection with his own arsenic eating habit.

A certain diary hoaxer seems to have 'cottoned' on to the same ideas as you. :welcome: :happy:

Love,

Caz
X

[John Adcock]

I have scanned and posted the Famous Crimes article on the Ratcliffe Highway Horrors here;

http://leroythompson.blogspot.com/

[John Adcock]

Hi John,

I know of one ripper suspect who was talking to an acquaintance in early 1889 about De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium-Eater, in connection with his own arsenic eating habit.

A certain diary hoaxer seems to have 'cottoned' on to the same ideas as you. :welcome: :happy:

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,
Whenever I come across a historical mystery involving a horrible murder I always ask myself, "What did that perpetrator read as a child ?" Penny dreadfuls, the Illustrated Police News, comic periodicals ?

Jack strikes me as a very methodical and theatrical murderer. Sometimes I think he may have planned five murders and five only, geared to maximum graphic impact. So when he was interupted on the third he immediately carried out the fourth because it was essential to a plan.

After the last murder he had achieved his goal, not personal notoriety but a mysterious immortality. He must have been chuffed to think "It will be a long time before anyone tops that !"

Love you, too,
John

Ratcliffe Highway Horrors from Famous Crimes here;

http://leroythompson.blogspot.com/

[Adam Went]

Hi John and all,

This reminds me of the story that JTR was inspired by the Jekyll & Hyde play.

It all depends on what type of a man JTR was - I personally think that Jack believed there was some purpose in the murders he was commiting, that he wasn't just killing for the sake of it, but I'm not sure whether part or all of it would have been to try and emulate something he had read, watched or heard about earlier on in his life.

What sort of childhood did he have? How educated was he? If he was of the poorer, ill-educated class as many were in the East End of 1888, there's every chance that he would have had very limited literacy skills and may not have been able to read at all. Certainly some of the studies carried out during the Victorian period would echo this - if you read through some of the surveys done by Henry Mayhew and others like him ("The Victorian Underworld" by Donald Thomas is an excellent source for this kind of information), there are mentions of young people who had never even heard of France, let alone read a book or watched a play and been inspired to do something by it.

Having said that, I believe Jack was a reasonably clever man, but as I mentioned earlier, it all depends on whether he was the sort of person to take notice of such things. There must have been something which caused him to commit the murders - the question is, what?

Cheers,
Adam.

[Caroline Morris]

Hi John, Adam,

Sorry for the delay in responding.

It's well known these days that stashes of reading material are very often found in the homes of serial violent offenders, which can be related in various direct or indirect ways to the offender's own criminal, or otherwise unhealthy, personal habits.

This should be no big surprise, because anyone who can be attracted by the idea of murdering or mutilating, to the point of turning their fantasy into reality, is virtually certain to be similarly attracted to any related material they can get their hands on. I think some people make a big mistake when they claim that this material can in any way be held responsible for causing an otherwise healthy and well adjusted mind to start developing unhealthy fantasies and obsessions.

One might argue that it's possible (although I don't see how it could ever be proved), but it certainly doesn't follow. They could strap me down and force me to look at films of people putting their head in the fire, and while it might make me wish the cameraman had done the same, it wouldn't make me want to put my own, or anyone else's head in the fire. ;)

I have little doubt that, whatever education Jack did or didn't have, he would have been attracted to anything the LVP could offer him by way of morbid material or fantasy fodder, whether it was limited to looking at risqué illustrations or photos, or extended to reading some of the related literature of the age. Even if he couldn't read as a child, he could have tried to learn at a later date for the specific purpose of getting to grips with some volume that took his sick fancy.

Love,

Caz
X

[John Adcock]

Hi Adam, Caroline,

Interesting posts. I have to disagree with Adam about the literacy of the lower classes however particularly at that point in the 1880's. Beginning in the 1830's with the fight of the unstamped for a free press there was an obvious thirst for knowledge and reading amongst the poor and working class and the teaching of reading was in large part the province of the working classes in their coffe-houses and mechanics institutes. By the 1880's it would have been rare to find a child who could not read at least the rudiments.

I'm not a believer in the idea that reading can turn someone into a criminal but it's obvious that children and adults emulate things that appeal to them in books and movies particularly in matters of fashion. When I was a kid we emulated the dress of the juvenile delinquents, then the hippies. How many kids were ready and willing to smoke pot for the first time because of reading in books like Mezz Mezzrow's Really the Blues that it was harmless? How many took to the road influenced by Jack Kerouac?

I knew plenty of teen-aged hoods who read the criminal biographies for delight and instruction. I'm not saying that these cause crime or criminals- but that it can be an attractive lifestyle for the disadvantaged.

And I'll blow my own horn here *blush* with a post that I wrote which was precisely about the influence of penny dreadfuls and dime novels on the street arabs of the Victorian age.

The “Boy Pirates” of Floodgate Street >

http://yesterdays-papers.blogspot.com/2007/01/in-year-1885-floodgate-street-with-its.html