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Dave Yost, Elizabeth Stride and JtR: The Life and Death of the Reputed Third Victim. (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2008). ISBN-10: 0786433183; ISBN-13: 978-0786433186 (paperback).
I see there is a blog set up for this book, but we usually talk about new books here, don’t we? I hate making decisions. I’ll talk about it here.
I was looking forward to this book because I’m an admirer of Yost’s work, in particular the book he wrote with Alexander Chisholm and Christopher-Michael DiGrazia in 2002, The News from Whitechapel: JtR in the Daily Telegraph, but I was rather disappointed in this one.
It is a slim volume and a great deal of it simply contains reprints of the inquest testimony and newspaper accounts that we have all read many times before, or can easily obtain from other sources. And, in a specialized book such as this, do we really need to read, yet again, of events such as the Phoenix Park murders, the Fenian bombings in London, and the Trafalgar Square riots? This is all pretty well-trodden ground.
There are a few odd statements in the book; for example, early on (p. 22), Buck’s Row is described as “lying several blocks north of Whitechapel Road”. And, on the same page, Yost states that the Shadwell Dry Dock fire of August 30 could be seen even as far away as Whitechapel. Well, I guess. As we know from the testimony of John Pizer, it could be seen at least as far as Holloway. There are also more spelling mistakes and typos (Macnaughten, Riper) than one would expect from this author and publisher.
His central thesis (as you might suspect from the subtitle) is that JtR did not murder Stride. (This will be welcome news to the supporters of this theory currently having at it with the non-supporters on another thread.) On Yost’s analysis of the evidence, he concludes that BS man killed Liz, “Lipski” was directed at Pipeman, and Mrs. Mortimer heard the “heavy measured tramp” of BS man making his escape north on Berner and then west through Batty’s Gardens. Obviously some contentious stuff here that some readers might find to be based more on speculation than fact.
The strong points of the book are Yost’s detailed description of Stride's life and his analysis of the timing of events on Berner Street in the hour prior to Diemschutz’s discovery of her body. For aficionados, those alone may be sufficient reasons to buy it.
I see there is a blog set up for this book, but we usually talk about new books here, don’t we? I hate making decisions. I’ll talk about it here.
I was looking forward to this book because I’m an admirer of Yost’s work, in particular the book he wrote with Alexander Chisholm and Christopher-Michael DiGrazia in 2002, The News from Whitechapel: JtR in the Daily Telegraph, but I was rather disappointed in this one.
It is a slim volume and a great deal of it simply contains reprints of the inquest testimony and newspaper accounts that we have all read many times before, or can easily obtain from other sources. And, in a specialized book such as this, do we really need to read, yet again, of events such as the Phoenix Park murders, the Fenian bombings in London, and the Trafalgar Square riots? This is all pretty well-trodden ground.
There are a few odd statements in the book; for example, early on (p. 22), Buck’s Row is described as “lying several blocks north of Whitechapel Road”. And, on the same page, Yost states that the Shadwell Dry Dock fire of August 30 could be seen even as far away as Whitechapel. Well, I guess. As we know from the testimony of John Pizer, it could be seen at least as far as Holloway. There are also more spelling mistakes and typos (Macnaughten, Riper) than one would expect from this author and publisher.
His central thesis (as you might suspect from the subtitle) is that JtR did not murder Stride. (This will be welcome news to the supporters of this theory currently having at it with the non-supporters on another thread.) On Yost’s analysis of the evidence, he concludes that BS man killed Liz, “Lipski” was directed at Pipeman, and Mrs. Mortimer heard the “heavy measured tramp” of BS man making his escape north on Berner and then west through Batty’s Gardens. Obviously some contentious stuff here that some readers might find to be based more on speculation than fact.
The strong points of the book are Yost’s detailed description of Stride's life and his analysis of the timing of events on Berner Street in the hour prior to Diemschutz’s discovery of her body. For aficionados, those alone may be sufficient reasons to buy it.
which everyone from children to parents to teachers and librarians seems to enjoy, Raccoon Learns a Lesson: The Adventures of Rabbit and Squirrel.)
and there were many times I almost didn't complete it, because of that dilemma. But I kept going anyway, with only 2 thoughts in mind: 1) I hope people enjoy reading it (which is why I did it as a continual narrative) and 2) I hope people get a lot of information out of it.
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