So this is (currently, at least) a half-baked idea but I think I want to write my second paper on From Hell. Specifically, I want to compare the Alan Moore fictionalization to what we currently know about the Whitechapel murders.
Does this work? Any suggestions?
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Would be an interesting paper, that's for sure. As Moore himself makes quite clear in the appendixes, whatever truth there ever was has been muddled beyond recognition over the years. I wonder if it's possible to find the coroner or inquest reports.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure you can find copies of them - there's been so many Ripperologists over the years that the records have to be available in some form or another.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be mad interesting to see how much evidence there is that could be used to support Alan Moore's fictionalized version - well, maybe a more tame, less supernatural-ish version of those events...William Withey Gull was actually considered a suspect for a while by more contemporary Ripperologists, although I'm pretty sure that's just because everybody loves a good conspiracy theory.
There are quite a few documents collected on casebook.org, not the least of which being at least the death certificates and such. They also have the letters signed "Jack the Ripper" (hence the name) that most believe to be written by a reporter or the like. I will have to delve deeper to try and find other documents, those are only the ones I have come across so far while reading.
ReplyDeleteMoore seemed to get a lot of information from Stephen Knight's Jack the Ripper: The FInal Solution. I know there are many other theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper. Here is a list of suspects: http://www.casebook.org/suspects/. I was very surprised to found Lewis Carroll on this list. I watched a show on tv one time where this historian described the evidence to back his belief that James Kelly was Jack the Ripper.
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