How Brown
02-13-2010, 03:07 PM
The Forums thank Mr. Ripper for the time and effort in his responses.
1. Please give the Forums member a little background on your interest in the Whitechapel Murders.
2. Have you ever been persuaded by an argument for a suspect in the past ? If so, has it changed over time and if your opinion has changed, are you just one of the many "suspectless" Ripperologists in the field ?
3. Its been said that Mr. Ripper has a book in the works. This seems natural. You've got the best name in the field,hands down, for writing a book on the Ripper. Would you care to fill us in as to what the topic of the book is ?
4. Please offer your views on the last Convention which you attended & please share some of the most positive aspects of this previous event with the readers.
5. Which of the murders is the one you find yourself going back more often to contemplate or perhaps the one murder in the skein that is most significant to you.
****************************
1) I think it's probably axiomatic that most people whose surname is Ripper end up being painfully aware of their notorious namesake. I've been immune, for some reason, but I understand that most of the males in the family are known socially as "Jack" - I know my dad is. Anyway, in the early nineties, and in deference to the surname, I picked up a copy of Donald Rumbelow's 1975 book, and read that, and thought very little more of it. Then, about ten years ago, I found myself with twenty quid which I didn't know what to do with, and bought the A-Z and Richard Wallace's book, alleging that Lewis Carroll was Jack the Ripper. The first taught me that there was actually a serious field of study coalescing around the Whitechapel murders; the second taught me that it was, or could be, enormous fun... Later on, I moved to London, and got a bit more involved.
2) I've never been "converted", but I remember finding Paul Feldman's explanation of the diary compelling at the time. Should I confess to that?... Of course, the thing with Jack the Ripper is that the more you find out, the less you'd be prepared to wager your mortgage on, and I'm in this almost nihilistic position - which, as you suggest, isn't uncommon - in which the sum total of anything I've learned about the matter over the years has added up, in the end, to nothing at all - to no solution whatsoever. It's an equation without an answer, and that's what keeps most people on this board coming back, I imagine.
3) Um, yes, all right. In a nutshell, it's called Murder and Crime - Whitechapel and District, and it's being published by The History Press in February next year. If you've seen books in the Murder and Crime series before, then you'll be familiar with the way they work - I'm covering seven cases, all occurring within the maze of streets with which we're all familiar, and although one of them is, of course, Jack the Ripper, I hope that my coverage of the other cases will be interesting too. I am trying not to give too much away here, but suffice to say that they are all Victorian and Edwardian cases (more or less) and, naturellement, the social environment is always in the background, driving the behaviour of individuals and groups in ways which, nowadays, appal, terrify or distress. Obviously, Whitechapel wasn't an invariably cheerful place, and, in the book, I'm not necessarily trying to lighten the mood. For some of these people you simply have to have great pity. Just one other thing while we're on this topic - I'm writing it as M.W. Oldridge, because I felt that writing a book partially about Jack the Ripper, or any crime, really, and putting the surname Ripper on the spine would have been excruciatingly crass. It makes me look like I've named myself after my favourite murderer...
4) The Convention was terrific - full stop. It was the first one I had attended, and, to be honest, I was initially slightly anxious lest my attention should wander during the talks. Who wants to know about Alice McKenzie's Peterborough?, I reasoned: and, as it turned out, the answer was that I did. All the speakers were superb, and I ought to mention that the delegates were appreciative, generous and erudite. The truth is, you meet some incredibly nice people through Jack the Ripper, who turns out, unlikely though it seems, to be rather good for one's social life. Frankly, I'm hotly anticipating the next Convention, and I'd recommend the experience to anyone.
5) Hmmm, good question. I'm not sure I'm biased towards any individual episode ahead of any other, but I'm naturally curious about other people's private lives, so the murder of Mary Jane Kelly is particularly rich in this respect. You get that sense of what, then, constituted home and hearth, basic though they were; and the minute details which posterity now pores over - Mrs Maxwell's china, Mrs Prater's kitten, and so on - would never have been preserved were it not for the dead hand of chance descending on Millers Court one morning in 1888. It's the partially-acceptable face of nosiness, I suppose, but I'm fascinated by the tableau of Whitechapel as it was then, and the little details, retained in the aspic of the contemporary local terror, which made life what it was.
1. Please give the Forums member a little background on your interest in the Whitechapel Murders.
2. Have you ever been persuaded by an argument for a suspect in the past ? If so, has it changed over time and if your opinion has changed, are you just one of the many "suspectless" Ripperologists in the field ?
3. Its been said that Mr. Ripper has a book in the works. This seems natural. You've got the best name in the field,hands down, for writing a book on the Ripper. Would you care to fill us in as to what the topic of the book is ?
4. Please offer your views on the last Convention which you attended & please share some of the most positive aspects of this previous event with the readers.
5. Which of the murders is the one you find yourself going back more often to contemplate or perhaps the one murder in the skein that is most significant to you.
****************************
1) I think it's probably axiomatic that most people whose surname is Ripper end up being painfully aware of their notorious namesake. I've been immune, for some reason, but I understand that most of the males in the family are known socially as "Jack" - I know my dad is. Anyway, in the early nineties, and in deference to the surname, I picked up a copy of Donald Rumbelow's 1975 book, and read that, and thought very little more of it. Then, about ten years ago, I found myself with twenty quid which I didn't know what to do with, and bought the A-Z and Richard Wallace's book, alleging that Lewis Carroll was Jack the Ripper. The first taught me that there was actually a serious field of study coalescing around the Whitechapel murders; the second taught me that it was, or could be, enormous fun... Later on, I moved to London, and got a bit more involved.
2) I've never been "converted", but I remember finding Paul Feldman's explanation of the diary compelling at the time. Should I confess to that?... Of course, the thing with Jack the Ripper is that the more you find out, the less you'd be prepared to wager your mortgage on, and I'm in this almost nihilistic position - which, as you suggest, isn't uncommon - in which the sum total of anything I've learned about the matter over the years has added up, in the end, to nothing at all - to no solution whatsoever. It's an equation without an answer, and that's what keeps most people on this board coming back, I imagine.
3) Um, yes, all right. In a nutshell, it's called Murder and Crime - Whitechapel and District, and it's being published by The History Press in February next year. If you've seen books in the Murder and Crime series before, then you'll be familiar with the way they work - I'm covering seven cases, all occurring within the maze of streets with which we're all familiar, and although one of them is, of course, Jack the Ripper, I hope that my coverage of the other cases will be interesting too. I am trying not to give too much away here, but suffice to say that they are all Victorian and Edwardian cases (more or less) and, naturellement, the social environment is always in the background, driving the behaviour of individuals and groups in ways which, nowadays, appal, terrify or distress. Obviously, Whitechapel wasn't an invariably cheerful place, and, in the book, I'm not necessarily trying to lighten the mood. For some of these people you simply have to have great pity. Just one other thing while we're on this topic - I'm writing it as M.W. Oldridge, because I felt that writing a book partially about Jack the Ripper, or any crime, really, and putting the surname Ripper on the spine would have been excruciatingly crass. It makes me look like I've named myself after my favourite murderer...
4) The Convention was terrific - full stop. It was the first one I had attended, and, to be honest, I was initially slightly anxious lest my attention should wander during the talks. Who wants to know about Alice McKenzie's Peterborough?, I reasoned: and, as it turned out, the answer was that I did. All the speakers were superb, and I ought to mention that the delegates were appreciative, generous and erudite. The truth is, you meet some incredibly nice people through Jack the Ripper, who turns out, unlikely though it seems, to be rather good for one's social life. Frankly, I'm hotly anticipating the next Convention, and I'd recommend the experience to anyone.
5) Hmmm, good question. I'm not sure I'm biased towards any individual episode ahead of any other, but I'm naturally curious about other people's private lives, so the murder of Mary Jane Kelly is particularly rich in this respect. You get that sense of what, then, constituted home and hearth, basic though they were; and the minute details which posterity now pores over - Mrs Maxwell's china, Mrs Prater's kitten, and so on - would never have been preserved were it not for the dead hand of chance descending on Millers Court one morning in 1888. It's the partially-acceptable face of nosiness, I suppose, but I'm fascinated by the tableau of Whitechapel as it was then, and the little details, retained in the aspic of the contemporary local terror, which made life what it was.