Saturday, June 7, 2008

"The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper" by Maxim Jakubowski and Nathan Braund

"The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper"
by Maxim Jakubowski and Nathan Braund
Format: Paperback, 512 pages

One of the greatest mysteries of the world is that of the identity of Jack the Ripper. When I was a child I saw a movie about Jack the Ripper and since then I'm more than curious about this subject. "The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper" by Maxim Jakubowski and Nathan Braund gathers a great amount of information on the subject and some theories on the case.

The first part of the book offers us a good view on the events that occured in 1888 in the Whitechapel area of London. This section of the book introduces us the victims, the suspects, the police investigation and the events. This section offers the complete events arranged in chronological order, the facts of the case and the background of the victims. Also here we will find other information such as the witness declarations, police views completed with some autopsy reports and the Jack the Ripper's letters received by the police, the "Dear Boss" letter, the "Saucy Jack" postcard and the "From Hell" letter.

The second part of the book is composed by different theories made by Ripperologists. Their essays on the subject talk about different theories and research made on the identity of Jack the Ripper, pointing to one of the suspects which the author of the essay believe to be the true Jack the Ripper, with some of them pointing the same suspect. Also we find essays in which the author talks about his passion for the subject, about the researches made by him and about his theory on the identity of Jack the Ripper. Some of them write essays different from the general line and talk about a diary of Jack the Ripper, about a political conspiracy and about the opinion of the mystery novels author, Patricia Cornwell, on the case.

At the end of the book you'll find a list of books and movies about Jack the Ripper gathered in Bibliography and Filmography sections. I know that the true identity of Jack the Ripper remains and I think will remain a mystery, but Maxim Jakubowski and Nathan Braund's book is an excellent source for information on the case and anybody interested in Jack the Ripper will find all the needed information in "The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper".

4 comments:

Harry Markov said...

I think too many people wonder when there has nothing to eb wondered about. Everyone knows that Jack the Ripper is Jack, who happens to rip sometimes bad whores on the streets. It's quiality control people.

Okay, lame joke aside, interesting book to read. I like the subject and a nice review to boot.

Mihai A. said...

Lots of information.

ediFanoB said...

The book has been published first in 1999. So it's not that new.

I didn't know the book before.
So thank you for reviewing it.

Anyway if you are interested in Jack the Ripper I would recommend following webpages:

http://www.casebook.org/index.html

http://www.met.police.uk/history/ripper.htm

Mihai A. said...

Thank you for the links. I know that the book was first released in 1999, this one being the new edition, with some minor differences from the previous one :)