The Diary of Jack the Ripper – Book Review

Jack the Ripper remains the most notorious serial killer of all time. The fact that he was never caught and never identified remains a mystery. Here is a book that purports to reveal Jack’s real diary. According to the writer, Jack the Ripper was actually a Liverpool cotton merchant named James Maybrick. No, I am not revealing the ending, that is revealed on the first page. He traveled to London by train, murdered and mutilated his victims, and quietly returned home to torment his young wife.

James Maybrick was certainly an interesting man. He traveled to Norfolk, Virginia for the cotton and tobacco business and on the boat ride home, he met and fell in love with an American beauty named Florence Chandler. She was 18 years old. He was 41. It would seem that both parties imagined the other to be richer than they really were.

Florence was destined to become the first American woman to be tried in an English court, and since the charge was that of murdering her husband, it was a case that entered the nation. The book argues that the reason for the sudden end of the Ripper murders was because Maybrick was dead.

The mysterious diary that came to light in the late 1980s is reproduced almost in its entirety. I’ll let you decide as to its authenticity. As for the book itself, I found it to be an interesting read and certainly learned a lot that I didn’t know before. It may contain obvious anomalies, but you may want to get a copy and make up your own mind.

There is a vaguely interesting personal footnote. Among the photographs in the book is an image of the Knowsley Buildings in Old Hall Street, Liverpool. This is the building where James Maybrick kept his offices. It was an old block with exterior Dickensian metal stairs, almost a cross between a workhouse and a prison. In my youth I knew it well. There is a photograph in the Knowsley Buildings book and inside the basement, clearly visible, is or was a barber shop. I also knew it well. I vividly remember sitting there waiting for a cut, like a teenage office worker, clutching my newly released Sergeant Pepper album.

The hall was old and was dismantled when the building was torn down in 1970. The thought occurs to me that it could possibly have been that James Maybrick, who had an office upstairs, had cut his locks there as well. He was a neat and handsome guy, the picture of him tells us that. It would seem very likely that he would go downstairs to cut himself.

Could it have been that I sat in the chair that Jack the Ripper himself sat in, while he thought about his horrible business? Now there is a thought! I liked the book. It brought back a lot of memories, most of them good.

Jack the Ripper diary

By Shirley Harrison

ISBN: 1562827049