Vote the Diary

[Pcdunn]

I have often torn out a draft of my fiction from a notebook, either because it has been finished (or I'm mad at my efforts and starting over!), so that isn't so odd to me. At the same time, the speculation that the "diary" contained unrelated material, such as photos, can't be overlooked in the modern hoax solution. It just makes too much sense.

[GUT]

I have often torn out a draft of my fiction from a notebook, either because it has been finished (or I'm mad at my efforts and starting over!), so that isn't so odd to me. At the same time, the speculation that the "diary" contained unrelated material, such as photos, can't be overlooked in the modern hoax solution. It just makes too much sense.

But that's a notebook being used as a notebook, not a scrapbook, photo book being used as a "diary".

[Purkis]

I think it's important to remember that despite the title that it has become known by, the document isn't actually written as a diary.
It is the random scrawlings of a troubled drug addict. The type of thing that would be written on impulse in whatever blank pages initially came to hand, rather than in a book specially selected and purchased iin advance, in which to document one's descent into addiction and psychosis.

[GUT]

I think it's important to remember that despite the title that it has become known by, the document isn't actually written as a diary.
It is the random scrawlings of a troubled drug addict. The type of thing that would be written on impulse in whatever blank pages initially came to hand, rather than in a book specially selected and purchased iin advance, in which to document one's descent into addiction and psychosis.

And where do we find proof James was psychotic?

[MayBea]

A very simple basic fact about the diary that is always forgotten about a man like Maybrick would have used a proper diary.

And a man like Jack the Ripper would too?

As Pcdunn said, it's "random scawlings of a drug addict", and it's the secret confessions of a serial killer who's a businessman by day.

It makes sense that he'd hide his ravings in the back of one of his office stub books, and then rip out the section with office records, because he was found out by the office boy, or even for symbolic reasons as his alter ego took over.

You could say a modern forger didn't want to present his Jack as someone engaged in a something 'girlie' such as diary keeping but it was considered a feminine pursuit since at least 1880.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=QkP...ursuit&f=false

[Pcdunn]

And a man like Jack the Ripper would too?

As Pcdunn said, it's "random scawlings of a drug addict", and it's the secret confessions of a serial killer who's a businessman by day.

It makes sense that he'd hide his ravings in the back of one of his office stub books, and then rip out the section with office records, because he was found out by the office boy, or even for symbolic reasons as his alter ego took over.

You could say a modern forger didn't want to present his Jack as someone engaged in a something 'girlie' such as diary keeping but it was considered a feminine pursuit since at least 1880.

[]

Purvis wrote about the "random scrawlings", not me.

As for diary keeping, any well-educated man who was an author, poet, explorer, scientist, politician, frequently did keep "journals" (another word for diaries, meaning "day books"). We know as much as we do about seventeenth century London due to the Diaries of Samuel Pepys.
The shift to diary-keeping being perceived as a feminine or juvenile pursuit may have coincided with the expansion of business and commerce in the Victorian and Edwardian ages, as men felt they had more important things to do (and less spare time for writing down the weather and their menu for dinner.)

[MayBea]

Thank you, Pcd. It was indeed Purkis with the 'random scrawlings'.

1888 was famous for The Diary of a Nobody serialized in Punch starting in May. But I think everyone will agree that Jekyll and Hyde was a major inspiration.

Imagine Hyde writing at the back of the doctor's appointment book!

[Graham]

I have never really understood why the excised pages from the 'diary' should render it impossible to date from the Victorian period. If someone wished to keep a record, fictional or otherwise, of his or her doings, real or imagined, then why shouldn't he or her re-cycle a good-quality manuscript book? Just slice out a few already-used pages and get on with it. In fact, I believe a (fictional) character in one of M R James' ghost-stories says that he often bought part-used manuscript books in which to jot down his own bits and pieces.

No way was this a 'diary' in the strict sense of the term. There is no day-to-day discipline for a start. It doesn't strike me as having been written on a day-to-day basis at all. Whoever did write it, I think wrote large chunks of it at one go. And very likely as some kind of joke, the punch-line of which has long been forgotten........

Graham

[GUT]

I have never really understood why the excised pages from the 'diary' should render it impossible to date from the Victorian period. If someone wished to keep a record, fictional or otherwise, of his or her doings, real or imagined, then why shouldn't he or her re-cycle a good-quality manuscript book? Just slice out a few already-used pages and get on with it. In fact, I believe a (fictional) character in one of M R James' ghost-stories says that he often bought part-used manuscript books in which to jot down his own bits and pieces.

No way was this a 'diary' in the strict sense of the term. There is no day-to-day discipline for a start. It doesn't strike me as having been written on a day-to-day basis at all. Whoever did write it, I think wrote large chunks of it at one go. And very likely as some kind of joke, the punch-line of which has long been forgotten........

Graham

Using an old book is one thing, but why remove the old pages?

[GUT]

I have often torn out a draft of my fiction from a notebook, either because it has been finished (or I'm mad at my efforts and starting over!), so that isn't so odd to me. At the same time, the speculation that the "diary" contained unrelated material, such as photos, can't be overlooked in the modern hoax solution. It just makes too much sense.

That's about removing mistakes in effect, but why remove these pages? Or had he done a draft of the "diary" that he didn't like?

[Pcdunn]

Must have blank pages...

That's about removing mistakes in effect, but why remove these pages? Or had he done a draft of the "diary" that he didn't like?

Modern hoax or forgery: he or they know from the failed "Hitler Diary" hoax the need is to use period materials to write it in, so he/they search for a LVP blank diary, but only manage to find a photo album or scrapbook, which is mostly blank but not completely... So the first few pages are removed, to make the item completely blank, as well as to remove conflicting clues, such as the name of the old book's first owner, etc. It's hard not to come to this conclusion.

Old hoax or forgery: Victorian authors loved pranks, especially written ones. Ever hear of the "Moon Men" newspaper hoax? A series of articles claiming scientists had used a powerful telescope to determine there was humanoid life on the moon-- very popular, but eventually admitted to be a hoax. Now imagine how the Jack the Ripper case had received global attention. All the papers competed to produce new details. Could the MayBrick "diary" have been drafted by a newspaperman, hoping to create a sensational "scoop" by tying together two of London's biggest news personages? Or perhaps it was intended as a private prank, to be shared among a small circle of friends. If the latter, any old used book or photo album would do.

[GUT]

Modern hoax or forgery: he or they know from the failed "Hitler Diary" hoax the need is to use period materials to write it in, so he/they search for a LVP blank diary, but only manage to find a photo album or scrapbook, which is mostly blank but not completely... So the first few pages are removed, to make the item completely blank, as well as to remove conflicting clues, such as the name of the old book's first owner, etc. It's hard not to come to this conclusion.

Old hoax or forgery: Victorian authors loved pranks, especially written ones. Ever hear of the "Moon Men" newspaper hoax? A series of articles claiming scientists had used a powerful telescope to determine there was humanoid life on the moon-- very popular, but eventually admitted to be a hoax. Now imagine how the Jack the Ripper case had received global attention. All the papers competed to produce new details. Could the MayBrick "diary" have been drafted by a newspaperman, hoping to create a sensational "scoop" by tying together two of London's biggest news personages? Or perhaps it was intended as a private prank, to be shared among a small circle of friends. If the latter, any old used book or photo album would do.

I guess my point was, why remove them if it was genuine.

[Pcdunn]

I guess my point was, why remove them if it was genuine.

I don't think it is genuine, so we needn't worry about that.

[caz]

I have never really understood why the excised pages from the 'diary' should render it impossible to date from the Victorian period. If someone wished to keep a record, fictional or otherwise, of his or her doings, real or imagined, then why shouldn't he or her re-cycle a good-quality manuscript book? Just slice out a few already-used pages and get on with it. In fact, I believe a (fictional) character in one of M R James' ghost-stories says that he often bought part-used manuscript books in which to jot down his own bits and pieces.

No way was this a 'diary' in the strict sense of the term. There is no day-to-day discipline for a start. It doesn't strike me as having been written on a day-to-day basis at all. Whoever did write it, I think wrote large chunks of it at one go. And very likely as some kind of joke, the punch-line of which has long been forgotten........

Graham

Hi Graham,

Good to see you back here in Diary World.

My late father used to keep every bit of old scrap paper he could lay his hands on for all his writing purposes, despite being able to afford a new pad or book for every occasion. As we got older we would make fun of his penny-pinching, but it was probably why he could have afforded better.

Talking of the mystery of those excised diary pages, I am reminded of the entry for October 30, 1888, in The Diary of a Nobody, which begins:

I should very much like to know who has wilfully torn the last five or six weeks out of my diary. It is perfectly monstrous! Mine is a large scribbling diary, with plenty of space for the record of my everyday events, and in keeping up that record I take (with much pride) a great deal of pains.
I asked Carrie if she knew anything about it. She replied it was my own fault for leaving the diary about with a charwoman cleaning and the sweeps in the house.

There is also a mention of a double event, in the entry for January 5th, 1889.

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

Hi Caz!

Yes, Diary World! Nothing's really changed.....but thanks for the welcome back.

My wife can't keep herself out of junk-shops, and if she sees an old unused or partly-used diary, notebook, exercise-book, whatever, she'll buy it for 'jotting'. I'm sure the careful, penny-pinching Victorians did much the same, no matter how loaded they might have been.

Any word from Keith Skinner re: Battlecrease, yet? I've sometimes wondered if the 'diary' book was pinched from Battlecrease, written in, then returned with some pages missing but with a whole s**t-load of stuff for the titillation of future readers.

Cheers,

Graham