April 13, 2010
BOOK REVIEW: 'Secret Confessions' Book Suggests That Pornographic Writer 'Walter' May Have Been Jack the Ripper
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Sometimes a book's dust jacket and publicity release promise more than the book itself delivers. That's the case with "Jack the Ripper's Secret Confessions: The Hidden Testimony of Britain's First Serial Killer" (Skyhorse Publishing, 341 pages, $24.95) by David Monaghan and Nigel Cawthorne.
The jacket copy asserts that textile millionaire Henry Spencer Ashbee, "writing under the name 'Walter' -- had the means, the motive and the opportunity to be Jack the Ripper" the nom de crime of the killer of five women in east London's Whitechapel district in 1888.
In their conclusion in the actual book, Monaghan and Cawthorne say that Ashbee was one of the people they believe COULD have been the notorious killer, who mutilated and disemboweled the bodies of his victims. They describe several other potential Jack the Ripper candidates.
Be that as it may, "Jack the Ripper's Secret Confessions" is a useful addition to the vast number of Ripperology books. The five grisly murders in Victorian London have produced more books -- and theories -- than any other crime in the history of serial killers, judging by the extensive bibliography that the authors provide -- and the large number of books available in online listings. You could fill a library with books devoted to Jack the Ripper.
First published in a very limited -- 25 sets -- 11-volume edition in Amsterdam between 1888 and 1894, "My Secret Life" was republished by Grove Press in the 1960s with an astonishing several million copies sold in the last fifty years.
"My Secret Life" is one of the most famous pornographic works in literary history. Monaghan and Cawthorne present facts and suppositions that they say makes "My Secret Life" the anonymous "confession" of the Whitechapel murderer.
The publisher's description in the handout accompanying the review copy makes a leap of faith that the authors avoid when the description asserts that "Walter" is assuredly the pseudonym of Henry Spencer Ashbee. Again, anyone reading "Jack the Ripper's Secret Confessions" carefully and to the very end will find that the authors state that Ashbee MIGHT have been "Walter" and that "Walter" MIGHT have been Jack the Ripper.
You'll have to have a strong stomach to read "Walter's" accounts of rape, often of pre-pubescent girls, his sadistic treatment of servants and other women and the graphic accounts of his sexual exploits as excerpted in the new book. Victorian Britain was an awful place for women, especially women of the working and lower classes.
Men of higher socioeconomic classes -- like "Walter" -- preyed upon such women to the point where the Salvation Army and other organizations began campaigning for harsher punishment for those who sexually abused women. The Salvation Army, founded in England, was opposed by a "Skeleton Army" of pornographers and people who defended the brothels and open prostitution of London, the authors write.
Monaghan cite on Page 222 the 1886 book "Pyschopathia Sexualis" by Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902). Born in Germany and a resident of Vienna, Krafft-Ebing coined the terms "sadism" and "masochism" and described how such practices could lead to crimes like those committed by the man known as Jack the Ripper. In fact, the name came from a letter to the police than might have been penned by a journalist, not the actual murderer, Monaghan and Cawthorne write.
I'm skeptical of Monaghan's and Cawthorne's conclusions, such as they are. I don't think they prove beyond a doubt that "Walter" was the killer dubbed Jack the Ripper and I don't think they even prove that Henry Spencer Ashbee was "Walter." The real Jack the Ripper probably will never be revealed.
About the Authors:
David Monaghan is an award-winning television director. He lives in England. Nigel Cawthorne is the author of numerous books on history and true crime, including Serial Killers and Mass Murderers, and The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large. He lives in England.
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BOOK REVIEW: 'Secret Confessions' Book Suggests That Pornographic Writer 'Walter' May Have Been Jack the Ripper
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Sometimes a book's dust jacket and publicity release promise more than the book itself delivers. That's the case with "Jack the Ripper's Secret Confessions: The Hidden Testimony of Britain's First Serial Killer" (Skyhorse Publishing, 341 pages, $24.95) by David Monaghan and Nigel Cawthorne.
The jacket copy asserts that textile millionaire Henry Spencer Ashbee, "writing under the name 'Walter' -- had the means, the motive and the opportunity to be Jack the Ripper" the nom de crime of the killer of five women in east London's Whitechapel district in 1888.
In their conclusion in the actual book, Monaghan and Cawthorne say that Ashbee was one of the people they believe COULD have been the notorious killer, who mutilated and disemboweled the bodies of his victims. They describe several other potential Jack the Ripper candidates.
Be that as it may, "Jack the Ripper's Secret Confessions" is a useful addition to the vast number of Ripperology books. The five grisly murders in Victorian London have produced more books -- and theories -- than any other crime in the history of serial killers, judging by the extensive bibliography that the authors provide -- and the large number of books available in online listings. You could fill a library with books devoted to Jack the Ripper.
First published in a very limited -- 25 sets -- 11-volume edition in Amsterdam between 1888 and 1894, "My Secret Life" was republished by Grove Press in the 1960s with an astonishing several million copies sold in the last fifty years.
"My Secret Life" is one of the most famous pornographic works in literary history. Monaghan and Cawthorne present facts and suppositions that they say makes "My Secret Life" the anonymous "confession" of the Whitechapel murderer.
The publisher's description in the handout accompanying the review copy makes a leap of faith that the authors avoid when the description asserts that "Walter" is assuredly the pseudonym of Henry Spencer Ashbee. Again, anyone reading "Jack the Ripper's Secret Confessions" carefully and to the very end will find that the authors state that Ashbee MIGHT have been "Walter" and that "Walter" MIGHT have been Jack the Ripper.
You'll have to have a strong stomach to read "Walter's" accounts of rape, often of pre-pubescent girls, his sadistic treatment of servants and other women and the graphic accounts of his sexual exploits as excerpted in the new book. Victorian Britain was an awful place for women, especially women of the working and lower classes.
Men of higher socioeconomic classes -- like "Walter" -- preyed upon such women to the point where the Salvation Army and other organizations began campaigning for harsher punishment for those who sexually abused women. The Salvation Army, founded in England, was opposed by a "Skeleton Army" of pornographers and people who defended the brothels and open prostitution of London, the authors write.
Monaghan cite on Page 222 the 1886 book "Pyschopathia Sexualis" by Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902). Born in Germany and a resident of Vienna, Krafft-Ebing coined the terms "sadism" and "masochism" and described how such practices could lead to crimes like those committed by the man known as Jack the Ripper. In fact, the name came from a letter to the police than might have been penned by a journalist, not the actual murderer, Monaghan and Cawthorne write.
I'm skeptical of Monaghan's and Cawthorne's conclusions, such as they are. I don't think they prove beyond a doubt that "Walter" was the killer dubbed Jack the Ripper and I don't think they even prove that Henry Spencer Ashbee was "Walter." The real Jack the Ripper probably will never be revealed.
About the Authors:
David Monaghan is an award-winning television director. He lives in England. Nigel Cawthorne is the author of numerous books on history and true crime, including Serial Killers and Mass Murderers, and The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large. He lives in England.
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