Customer Reviews

Ripper And The Royals (Duckbacks)

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This is an amazing book with a lot of research and information revealed that had been previously - supposedly - withheld or suppressed. But one should go into the book "reading between the lines". The forward from Joseph Sickert sounds the warning. He endorsed this book. Sickert had clear cut aims in seeing the view of this book slanted in one direction, precisely the same determination that saw the falling out between Stephen Knight (author of Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution) and Joseph Sickert in the 1980's. Stephan Knight remained convinced of Walter Sickert's involvement in the case - what Joseph Sickert desperately wanted to counter. That tells you up front Joseph Sickert had an agenda, and while he offered "facts" to support his claim, they are offered with the single intent of removing the blood of the Ripper, a stain on his family's heritage. If you did not accept his take on this case, you did not get the information.

Sorry, that taints the whole objective of his "repeated" tales and the removes "unbias" from the writer's effort. Sickert had a "natural reluctance" to reveal all the information he held. Why finally reveal it to Melvyn Fairclough? Because he finally found the one person to tell the story how he wanted it. Walter Sickert was supposedly possessed of an extraordinarily retentative memory, which Joseph, again supposedly inherited. Quoting the author "Joseph has inherited this faculty and remembers everything his mother and father told him." Such a sweeping statement shows immediately the author accepts every word as total verbatim, as fact. I possess a similar talent for memory, but I would NEVER say I remember everything. No one can! Time, attention and perception all play a role in what we can recall, how we recall.

While I don't agree with Cornwell's "case closed" book sighting Sickert as the Ripper, I do hold the opinion that Sickert was involved deeply in the White Chapel murders. Some of the tales he related were of things no one but someone there would be able to say in such details. One only has to look at Walter's paintings to see his closeness to the case. The very titles of his paintings are clues that should not be ignored. Walter Sickert unloaded these facts to his family. Do you seriously believe he would admit his own involvement? Or would he rather do as he actually did, present the knowledge as "second hand"?

This book is exciting, but should not be accepted as the "final solution". It is evidence presented by a writer influenced by his source's own drive to see his family's reputation restored, who likely did not get the whole truth handed down from Walter Sickert to begin with.

So read the book for the evidence, but leave the conclusions - when balanced with other works and evidence - to someone less admiring of their subject, a person determined to see this book written from one point of view.

Melvyn Fairclough's book 'The Ripper And The Royals' is the very best book written on the mysterious case of Jack The Ripper, next to Donald Rumbelow's 'Jack The Ripper: The Complete Casebook'.

Readers will find Fairclough's well-researched book 'The Ripper And The Royals' to be an astonishing and page-turning who-done-it! I've read this book twice and Fairclough, based on hard evidence, makes a first-rate, but often chilling case on the deep involvement of the British Royal family in the Ripper murder case. In fact, Fairclough clear's up a mystery behind a Scottish legend, that is also tied in with Jack The Ripper! Fairclough also documents that the behavior of the Royal family well into the 20th century, is based on their legacy from Jack The Ripper.

More importantly Melvyn Fairclough's 'The Ripper And The Royal's brings the reader back to 1888 London's East End, with it's gaslights, horsedrawn carriages, and cobblestone streets! The reader can join Scotland Yard's Inspector Abberline on the hunt for Jack The Ripper!

It is interesting how the author, probably to protect the name of his ancestor, cites Walter Sickert so often. I would highly recommend Patricia Cornwell's Jack the Ripper Portrait of a Killer - Case closed, which establishes beyond the shadow of a doubt that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper. She matches Sickerts mitochondrial DNA to the stamps on the Ripper Letters, matches Sickerts rare and expensive stationary to the stationary of the Ripper letters, analyzes the red ink of the letters and establishes that it is in fact expensive artist's etching ground, even shows elements of the Ripper crimes in the artwork. The head of Scotland Yard even said that if the Ripper were alive today, there would be enough evidence to bring the case to court. This book is a sham and a waste of money.

Not a good account at all. For some reason people really like conspiracy theories. The truth is more interesting. According to the "Casebook: Jack the Ripper" website, even the author of "The Ripper and the Royals" has disavowed it.

Read Sugden's "Complete History of Jack the Ripper" or Begg's new one, "Jack the Ripper: The Facts" (the 2004 edition, not the earlier one).