A Re-read of the JtR Literature

[Phil H]

Thank, Stephen. I'm flattered you are aboard.

Next installment tomorrow. Got distracted today!

Phil

[Jonathan H]

According to you, you are never to be held accountable as to what you write or the attacks you make on others.

Hypocritically, you claim that I don't know what's in your mind (I never said I did) but you know I'm not a Leftist, which again shows your prejudice against that side of the political spectrum.

You're like bigots who say bigoted things and when you call them a bigot they then say: but you cannot read my mind.

Who needs to?

I thought your idea of a review of the post-war secondary sources was excellent. I wrote as much. What a shame you have turned it into this because of your hatred, venom and distaste.

Don't worry, the Casebook powers will take your side against me and I'll be blackballed, forever, while you will go on your way merrily trashing 'blasphemers' as you, in your mind, always occupy the lofty moral high ground.

Can't you see you are slipping into pure buffdom? I mean even McCormick must be defended as orthodox? McCormick! You never did, of course, address my point that he claimed to Cullen that Dutton had photographed the Graffiti.

[Cogidubnus]

Jonathon

In all honesty what on earth are you on about....

This is is a thread designed specifically to discuss the re-reading of historic Ripper books in the light of current knowledge...warts and all...and you want to pick some sort of argument based on the alleged difference between an author of the pre 1980 era exaggerating or inventing facts?

Jeez...we're not discussing exactitudes...just the sort of stuff that propelled us (thin enough in itself) way back when...

All the best

Dave

[Phil H]

I certainly shall not make any complaint Jonathan, nor do I wish to see you banned.

I did respond to your post by saying that you seemed to dislike McC - as evidently does Don - quite intensely - and I used the word "hater". But please, Jonathan look at the words you arer using about McC and me for that matter.

My remarks on your leftist views were - as the smilies were intended to indicate, meant to be light hearted. You have my sincere apologies if I touched a nerve or caused offence.

I am genuinely seeking to be dispassionate in this thread in relation to the books. As I will explain in a future post, I am unclear why some people appear to be very (shall we say) unforgiving about him even after all these years.

But enough of this, let's draw a line and move on shall we?

Cordially, Phil

[Stewart P Evans]

I just had to...

I just had to weigh in with my half penn-orth on this one!

Whatever the writing conventions of his day were, McCormick engaged in shameless invention, fantasy and fiction posing as fact. And his legacy is still with us today, as less well informed newcomers read his books and accept what he wrote as fact. He was still at it in the mid-1990s, so there is no real excuse that it was because of the age in which he wrote.

Unfortunately these literary hoaxes were not confined only to the Ripper case.

[Stewart P Evans]

For what it's worth...

For what it's worth I think that Jonathan Hainsworth is 'a dear old boy', one of the highest accolades that I hand out.

[Phil H]

Well, we'll have to differ somewhat Stewart.

I have read enough history to know that the reader has to decide for himself what is good or bad - author's write for many reasons (and may not have complete freedom) and journalists for others. One has to sort the wheat from the chaff for oneself. I'll make my conclusions plain later.

I can point to many books about UFOs, Rennes Le Chateau, ancient Egypt that are transient, populist pulp. But they attract readers. I think McC was probably writing in the same way - when he wrote there was no Ripper "industry" as there is today. Even now trash on JtR gets published and I have several "magazine" type publications, glossy slim volumes bought in newsagents, which simply reflect what other writers have said. But they are interesting and exciting and reach an audience that maybe the Sourcebook or Sugden would not. Are we to condemn them?

It was a sensationalist field - the 1959 film (based on Matters' probable invention) was what drew me in (too young to see the actual film aged 11 the trailer alone terrified me on a re-run). Are we to condemn Mrs Belloc Lowndes? I'll be interested to read what you have to say about Knight when we get to him. Far less excuse by that time with the files open at least to serious researchers.

I think you know, Stewart, that I admire and am appreciative of what you have done in this field. Since 1988 the level of scholarship has improved a hundred fold over what went before.

I personally want to see the highest standards in Ripper studies. McC on that basis would not stand very high today. But I am trying to see him in his context and I'll reach my own conclusions based on the book - not the man.

Edited to add - you probably met him, Stewart. I did not. I thus lack your insights gained from such meetings. I respect your views as always though in this case I disagree somewhat.

Phil

[Stewart P Evans]

As I said...

As I said, McCormick was still churning his nonsense on the Ripper out as late as 1995, for that there is no excuse. He did know of the criticism levelled at him and chose to ignore it.

A typical tactic was to use a reference or name printed in a newspaper or earlier book and then to build a fiction around it. His work has tainted more than one case. When asked for sources he had usually lost his notes or had forgotten. It would be easy to criticize authors of later works who repeated some of his inventions, and perhaps they shouldn't have used him as a source. Sugden is spot on in his analysis.

What gains McCormick a sympathetic following is his attractive, easy style of writing, his entertainment value if you like, and the undoubted atmosphere he creates. It cannot be denied that he was a clever writer.

All that said, his deceptions were shameless.

[Stewart P Evans]

A few More Points

A few more points.

Not all readers are well enough informed to decide for themselves what is good or bad. Especially when McCormick's inventions are repeated in later books and may not be easily recognised.

There was always a 'Ripper industry', started back in 1888, it has varied over the years depending on several factors. In modern times it tended to become a bit silly.

Mrs Belloc Lowndes does not write about Jack the Ripper. Her book is a novel (not even novelized fact) with the killer called 'the Avenger' and only the idea is based on the Ripper case. She made no claim to be writing facts.

[Phil H]

Well, Stewart I was taught as a civil servant to appriase a situation - not to situate my appriasal.

I note your views. But I also note that what you seem to imply is that I should have started off my review by rubbishing the author; by putting up a tobacco style warning ahead of every post on the book; or of ignoring the book completely.

I decline to do any of those.

You have also posted as you have before allowing me to post by conclusions or summing up of the book. I take it that you regard me as some sort of apologist for McCormick. I am not.

But I have been striving to review a book and then reach my conclusions, so that those reading it can see how and why I reached them.

However, your intervention has persuaded me that such an approach is pointless - I see now that you had an agenda when you intervened at the beginning of the thread. I can take a hint and I hereby close this thread so far as I am concerned. I will not continue with my review.

Have you now achieved your objective?

My apologies to those who were appreciative of what I had written, I hope you will understand that I simply cannot continue in the face of such opposition from probably the leading authority and writer in the field.

Phil

[Stewart P Evans]

My, my...

My, my, there are some sensitive souls around.

I have implied nothing, merely stated what I think. Posters are perfectly entitled to post what ever they wish, how they wish and when they wish and far be it from me to stop them. However, like them I am entitled to my own opinion and I'm damned if I'll apologise if what I say doesn't suit them. As is patently obvious from the foregoing they don't have to agree with me.

If I feel that someone is an apologist I usually tell them so and the present response is an example of one of the things that caused me to leave the boards in the first place. Funny how people become precious about threads started by themselves.

It is an unqualified nonsense, and totally incorrect, to suggest that I had an agenda. I have hinted nothing and I had no objective whatsoever. I am not going to become involved in a childish game of 'yes you did, no I didn't' and any poster who embarks on such a course need never expect me to respond to them again.

[Phil H]

Have it your way Stewart. I too have nothing to add to what I have said.

You may, however, like to re-read your posts.

Phil

[Cogidubnus]

I think it's a great pity that this promising thread should end in this fashion. At least two or three of us were enjoying it (and possibly more who did not post). Any chance please of a reconsideration?

All the best

Dave

[Jonathan H]

Thanks Stewart

Apology accepted, Phil H.

To Dave, just calm down and read Stewart's posts--and you will see 'what I am on about'.

That McCormick knowingly made stuff up, which was not acceptable pre-1980 (?!) and this fakery immediately began to derail the subject just as it was being written about again, post-war.

Lady Christabel Aberconway, to some extent, was inspired by McCormick's errors (yet neither the huckster nor the aristocrat knew that her father had concealed the identity of a drowned barrister) to try and preserve her father's Ripper legacy.

In the long run this campaign launched by Christabel has obviously failed dismally. In the last years of her life Lady Aberconway tried to nudge the argument back to her father's more accurate memoirs, but it was too late.

McCormick was a faker, with a fake Dr. Dutton archive, hustling a fake suspect (invented by Le Queux) and who dismisses Sims' drowned doctor--not realising that that too is partly fictitious.

It is a world of mirrors and, in my opinion, to not highlight this aspect is to do the old hoaxer a disservice.

Back at the start what was needed was a writer-researcher relatively free from commercial pressures, to take control of the subject in 1959-61, and instead we had Dan Farson who had mere days to nut out why Macnaghten's 'notes' mostly do not match the real Druitt? He came up with a very unlikely theory--and is even more unlikely if you read any sources on Mac--that the police chief was forgetful or relied only on files, and so on.

So, Tumblety would lie dormant, yet big-as-life in the American newspapers of 1888/9, for another thirty-three years!

The one positive footnote is that the fakers of the 'Diary' inserted a bit that was McCormick's invention, thus inadvertently dooming their not-so-clever hustle among serious researchers.

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

Sigh...

Yes, was enjoying this a bit. I see nothing wrong with any of what's transpired. Now that it has PASSED, might it continue now? Was very much looking forward to Phil H's conclusion. And whomever else's responses also. I have not the amount of knowledge on these subjects as others. Would you deprive me and others? We are all big boys and girls here. Might we put our big boy/girl pants on and get back at it? Much grattitude in advance.