How did you get interested in Jack.

[Pcdunn]

How many people, including several posters on this Forum, were converted to a lifetime of fascination with Jack after reading Cullen's 'Autumn of Terror/ When London walked in Terror'? I have a feeling it must be one of the most influential books ever written on the subject!

I have not read it, but I think I'm in the minority here. Another title to track down!

[Robert]

Dan Farson's book.

[barnflatwyngarde]

How many people, including several posters on this Forum, were converted to a lifetime of fascination with Jack after reading Cullen's 'Autumn of Terror/ When London walked in Terror'? I have a feeling it must be one of the most influential books ever written on the subject!

Yep, that's me!

Scuttling off to the local library after school and gradually finding my way around the adult library.
The local librarian let me borrow titles from the adult library even though I was technically too young.

Cullen's book lit the blue touch paper for a lifetimes fascination in the case,
then came Robin Odell, Dan Farson, Colin Wilson etc............

[Mayerling]

How many people, including several posters on this Forum, were converted to a lifetime of fascination with Jack after reading Cullen's 'Autumn of Terror/ When London walked in Terror'? I have a feeling it must be one of the most influential books ever written on the subject!

Yeah it does seem to have been a real spark. Even if it was not the first book one read on the Ripper per se, it is one that everyone likes to read. Cullen was a reporter, and wrote other books, on Dr. Crippen, the Vicar of Stewkey, Maumley Gregory, and even Victoria ("The Empress Brown" about her and her ghillie John Brown). I never was bored by anything he wrote. Of course the Ripper book is out of date by later works, like Rumbelow's or Sugden's. But it gives a firm beginning to the study of the case.

[Ginger]

Ginger: Thank you so much for the link to Horse World of London at Project Gutenberg; it looks great as a fiction writer's reference, and I will look into getting a download.

Indeed? Do you write horse stories, perchance?

[Rosella]

^ The Rector of Stiffkey (in Norfolk) near where I grew up, was rather an odd sort of character for Cullen to be interested in, I think. He was defrocked for behaving inappropriately with several parishioners and afterwards exhibited himself as a sideshow attraction. My aunt saw him once on Yarmouth beach clad in a barrel! I believe he died after being mauled by a lion.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

^ The Rector of Stiffkey (in Norfolk) near where I grew up, was rather an odd sort of character for Cullen to be interested in, I think. He was defrocked for behaving inappropriately with several parishioners and afterwards exhibited himself as a sideshow attraction. My aunt saw him once on Yarmouth beach clad in a barrel! I believe he died after being mauled by a lion.

Quite a biblical way to die.

[DJA]

Lions 1,Christians 0.

Familiar first quarter.

[Rosella]

Part of his sideshow career was preaching sermons to a cage full of lions. Unfortunately, in 1937 he accidentally stood on the tail of one called Freddie. Freddie grabbed hold of him and shook him. The audience thought it was part of the act....

[Mayerling]

^ The Rector of Stiffkey (in Norfolk) near where I grew up, was rather an odd sort of character for Cullen to be interested in, I think. He was defrocked for behaving inappropriately with several parishioners and afterwards exhibited himself as a sideshow attraction. My aunt saw him once on Yarmouth beach clad in a barrel! I believe he died after being mauled by a lion.

There was a film made in the 1980s with Michael Palin, Maggie Smith, Trevor Howard, Denholm Elliott, and Sir Michael Horden, and it was based somewhat on the Stiffkey Scandal about the prostitutes. It was called "The Missionary", but reset in 1905.

Jeff

[swagman]

I think my journey started after watching the film "murder by decree" - Sherlock Holmes meets jack the ripper. I must have been in my early teens and the images of the ripper in this film scared the life out of me...
Also on a lighter note I also recall as a youngster watching "the phantom raspberry blower of old London town" on the Two Ronnies and clearly remember that being done as a spoof on the ripper..

[Errata]

I was a really anxious kid, terrible separation anxiety. And my mom made the really mysterious choice to start introducing me to really inappropriate literature when I was about 9, and then we'd talk about it. My first string of words she taught me was "Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived" so it's not surprising the the books she gave me were from British History. The first was "A Night to Remember" which made me terrified of boats, the next was a book on the Ripper by Donald Rumbelow, which made me afraid of the dark. After that were biographies of Henry VIII's queens. Which made me afraid of marriage.

I'm not sure what she was thinking, but I ended up doing Renaissance Festivals while talking on a Jack the Ripper board and I still haven't been on a boat. So I guess it just stuck. Warts and all.

Which isn't to say there weren't books I wasn't allowed to read. There were. One was about a girl in a back brace, one was an account of a plane crash, and nothing with battle scenes. But Jackie Collins was fine, any mystery was fine, even my dad's ob/gyn texts were fine. So the system was at best mysterious. At worst, made up on the spot whenever I needed a new book. But I am largely undamaged. I think.

[Mayerling]

I was a really anxious kid, terrible separation anxiety. And my mom made the really mysterious choice to start introducing me to really inappropriate literature when I was about 9, and then we'd talk about it. My first string of words she taught me was "Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived" so it's not surprising the the books she gave me were from British History. The first was "A Night to Remember" which made me terrified of boats, the next was a book on the Ripper by Donald Rumbelow, which made me afraid of the dark. After that were biographies of Henry VIII's queens. Which made me afraid of marriage.

I'm not sure what she was thinking, but I ended up doing Renaissance Festivals while talking on a Jack the Ripper board and I still haven't been on a boat. So I guess it just stuck. Warts and all.

Which isn't to say there weren't books I wasn't allowed to read. There were. One was about a girl in a back brace, one was an account of a plane crash, and nothing with battle scenes. But Jackie Collins was fine, any mystery was fine, even my dad's ob/gyn texts were fine. So the system was at best mysterious. At worst, made up on the spot whenever I needed a new book. But I am largely undamaged. I think.

Don't feel you're alone. Although I can't currently afford a sea voyage for a vacation, I wonder (if I could currently do it) would I want to. "A Night to Remember" scared me too.

[Errata]

Don't feel you're alone. Although I can't currently afford a sea voyage for a vacation, I wonder (if I could currently do it) would I want to. "A Night to Remember" scared me too.

It was the realization that the sinking boat would suck down any survivors in the water that kept me up at night. You don't even have to be on a ship to go down with it. That just festers.

Terrible 3rd grade reading. I don't recommend it.

Man, now I'm going to be up all night thinking about it.

[Mayerling]

It was the realization that the sinking boat would suck down any survivors in the water that kept me up at night. You don't even have to be on a ship to go down with it. That just festers.

Terrible 3rd grade reading. I don't recommend it.

Man, now I'm going to be up all night thinking about it.

It took me years to not be queasy looking at drawings or paintings of Titanic going under - and that ending to the 1953 film with Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck did not help matters (the displacement of water when she went under looked like she would be flooding Greenland!). But I did calm down a bit, especially after Dr. Ballard found the wreck and pictures of her shattered hull were finally seen in the late 1980s. The Lusitania wreck looks like it was flattened by a steamroller. Bismarck and Empress of Ireland and Andrea Doria look recognizable.

Now if I could only get used to the photos of Mary Kelly that keep being reprinted in Ripper books. There is some hope - I find I'm more used to looking at photos of the dead Elizabeth Short ("the Black Dahlia") nowadays.

Jeff