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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting little hoax, May 20, 2003
I've been interested in Jack the Ripper for as long as I can remember. ... So, I happened upon this book and read it with great interest. I must say that even then, I was skeptical, and by no stretch of the imagination did I consider this book to be the resounding final solution that some still hold it up as. ...they're all just theories...and none of them truly hold up against close scrutiny. But I was still fascinated by this book the first time I read it, and there is a lot of decent information on the killings...which is why I've given it the two stars. Then there's the actual diary. Well, the people who still advocate the notion that this diary is authentic have a rude awakening in store. It's not. The more I read on Jack the Ripper, and the more times I read the diary, the more obvious it became that the diary was NOT written by Jack the Ripper...or even James Maybrick...but by someone living in the 20th century who thought it would be "cool" to elaborately pull the wool over the eyes of Ripperologists worldwide. Well, it hasn't worked. And here are the reasons that the Maybrick diary is a fake. First of all, there are some anachronisms in language in the diary itself, giving it away as a modern .... That's pretty cut and dried, but not nearly as damning as other factors. There are many errors in "Maybrick's" descriptions of the crimes, and the crime scenes. It's interesting to note that all of this erroneous information can be found in old newspaper clippings from 1888, when the murders were occuring. But, as was often the case in Victorian times, many of the newspaper stories were quite wrong about the details of the crimes. The newspaper stories don't match the reports of the police officials and/or medical examiners involved...the people who actually gathered the information. So, we can conclude that much of the "factual" information in the Maybrick diary seems to rely on old news clippings, rather than the firsthand experience of the murderer. Surely, if Maybrick WAS Jack the Ripper, he'd know exactly what organs were missing from whom, and where key body parts were located if they were removed and left behind. He'd also know that Jack didn't take the key to Mary Kelly's flat with him when he fled the scene, etc. Unfortunately, the person who forged this diary DIDN'T know some of those facts. Also, it's interesting to note that there are many parallels between this diary and the "Dear Boss" letter (which gave Jack the Ripper his name). If you read the diary with the chronology of the Ripper's murders and letters in mind, you'll see that "Maybrick" uses the very specific phrase "funny little games" (which was prominent in the Dear Boss letter) twice BEFORE the Dear Boss letter was ever written or sent. This would mean that, were the diary genuine, Maybrick would have to be the author of the Dear Boss letter, as well. But the Dear Boss letter is commonly accepted among Ripperologists as a fraud, written by someone other than the killer (much like this diary). One high-ranking police official who worked the case even had a pretty good idea who wrote the letter...and that person was a young, aspiring journalist. Couple this with the obvious fact that the handwriting in the diary in NO WAY resembles the handwriting in the Dear Boss letter, and we've found yet another broken link in the chain of this hoax. I could go on and on, listing reasons that I know this diary to be a fraud...but that would be self-indulgent, especially since the most damning piece of evidence against the authenticity of this diary is the most simple one of all. Michael Barrett brought this diary to Shirley Harrison, claiming that it had been given to him by a friend. The friend had said "No questions asked," and given no reason on earth as to WHY he would give this diary to Barrett. Surely, if his friend had ever been in possession of such a book, he would have gone public himself, rather than GIVING AWAY what could have been the most vital (and valuable) piece of serial killer memorabilia/evidence ever uncovered. Conveniently, Barrett's friend was dead by the time Barrett decided to bring the diary to the attention of anyone...therefore, he could neither confirm nor deny anything Barrett said...and so, Barrett could say whatever he wanted. And what Barrett eventually said...after all of the debate and controversy, after Shirley Harrison had written this book, after countless researchers spent countless hours analyzing this diary of his...was that he himself had written the diary, and that his wife had handwritten it in the old scrapbook, using his typed notes as a guide. End of story. So, due to all of the evidence against the diary's authenticity, including the admission of the actual author that he had masterminded the entire hoax, the James Maybrick Diary controversy can be put entirely to rest. Therefore, this book is interesting only as a curio, and as a source of some factual information on the Ripper murders (but none that can't be found in other, better Ripper books). Give it a read, but don't buy into it. The debate is over. And Jack the Ripper remains, as he always shall, unidentified.
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