Who was the author of the 'Maybrick' diary? Some options.

[caz]

Hi Chris,

According to Feldman, one of the Battlecrease electricians intimated that he'd removed the diary from Battlecrease, although he ultimately concluded that said electrician would "lie for the right price."

Feldman then goes on to relate how Mike subsequently confronted the man and accused him of lying. Do you think that Feldman had any independent evidence for this supposed confrontation? Or was he wholly reliant on Unreliable Mike's account of the incident ?

Hi John,

Eddie Lyons confirmed that Mike had confronted him on his doorstep. What we can't know is exactly what they had to say to each other.

If we go by Feldman's timing for this incident, it could not have been long before Eddie and Mike were on good enough terms to agree to meet Robert Smith in the Saddle [June 1993], where Eddie claimed to have found 'a book' and thrown it in a skip.

We don't know much about this relationship between Eddie and Mike, but there is no evidence that Feldman knew Eddie's address in Fountains Road, so no evidence that he gave this information to Mike. But if the two already knew each other, this would explain how Mike knew where to find Eddie when he had a serious issue with him over his proposed 'confession'.

The fact remains that Eddie could only have worked in Battlecrease House in 1992, but put his claim to Feldman to have found the diary back to an impossible 1989. If he knew the floorboards came up in 1992, because he was there, did this give him the idea for a completely bogus claim? If he didn't know, because he wasn't there, it was presumably just a coincidence that the floorboards were lifted in 1992, on the same day JtR's diary got its first ever documented mention. Or did Eddie find the diary on that day, but put it back to 1989 to protect himself in the event of any formal accusation, and to allow for it to have passed to Devereux and thence to Mike by 1991?

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Looking at it the other way round, Gareth, the hoaxer seems to have had "Sir Jim" writing his thoughts while at the office, and not wanting anyone to find and read them [until he is near the end]. So there is a case for the hoaxer not choosing a standard diary [much less one with "James Maybrick's Personal Journal" engraved on its cover ], which might have tempted a nosey office boy to take a sneaky peek.

Actually, is there anything in the diary text that could be seen as an excuse or explanation for the type of book used, its state of repair, the missing pages etc?

This could be rather important for anyone who has latched onto the theory that the text was already prepared and ready to go before the physical book was found to house it.

How much editing of the original draft would have been needed, because an actual unused diary could not be obtained in time for Mike's meeting with Doreen on April 13th 1992?

Love,

Caz
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[Hunter]

Hi Caz,

Actually, is there anything in the diary text that could be seen as an excuse or explanation for the type of book used, its state of repair, the missing pages etc?...

Yes, the very first line of text.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Caz,



Yes, the very first line of text.

which is??

[Hunter]

"...what they have in store for them they would stop this instant. But do I desire that?"

"desire that" is actually next line, but there it is.

[Abby Normal]

"...what they have in store for them they would stop this instant. But do I desire that?"

"desire that" is actually next line, but there it is.

what does:

Actually, is there anything in the diary text that could be seen as an excuse or explanation for the type of book used, its state of repair, the missing pages etc?...

have to do with this??

]"...what they have in store for them they would stop this instant. But do I desire that?"

[Hunter]

Starting in mid sentence, mid thought and apparently mid journal suggest that part of the journal itself was torn out for some reason rather than pages used to mount photographs in. This indicates working around what the book actually was and its condition when procured.

Hope this is understandable?

[Abby Normal]

Starting in mid sentence, mid thought and apparently mid journal suggest that part of the journal itself was torn out for some reason rather than pages used to mount photographs in. This indicates working around what the book actually was and its condition when procured.

Hope this is understandable?

like a modern hoaxer trying to muddle the fact that pages had been ripped out and acting like it was done after the writer had started writing?

clever... not.

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Yes, the very first line of text.

Yep, I thought of that one. Thanks Cris.

Any more?

I wonder how many last-minute amendments to the prepared text would become apparent if one assumes the physical book was only acquired, as David Orsam theorises, at the very end of March 1992, with just 12 days to go before the ink was blotted on the finished forgery and it was presented to Doreen and Shirley, and taken to the British Museum and Jarndyce for its first close inspections?

Much less problematic, I'd have thought, to cut one's garment according to one's cloth, by first acquiring the book and then tailoring the contents to suit it. But then, did Mike ever do things the easy way?

I do think much of the text fits rather conveniently with the guardbook containing it, as an item more at home in an office environment than someone's personal diary would have been. In theory it could once have contained business cards and such, and been adapted to accommodate jottings too private for prying eyes.

Love,

Caz
X

[John G]

If Mike had the diary at that point, yes. But what if he made his preliminary telephone enquiries before he had actually taken the diary off his electrician mate's hands for £25?



Not sure I grasp this, John. Why would size matter unless he needed this Victorian diary to forge JtR's? If he had already seen JtR's, judged it to be a diary from the date at the end, and just wanted to know how easy it would have been for a scallywag to obtain any diary from the 1880s with enough blank pages for a leg pull, the size of those pages need not have seemed an important consideration.



You're just beginning to get the hang of how Mike operated. If you can do that you'll have to give the rest of us lessons.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

Perhaps I've misunderstood your point. My understanding is that you had postulated that Mike had doubts about the diary he allegedly received from TD. He therefore decided to see how easy it would be to obtain a suitable Victorian diary- the maroon diary-and, following his failed effort, concluded that it wouldn't be easy at all. Ergo, the TD diary was probably genuine. Is that correct?

Provisionally assuming that it is, I will refer to you to Mike's original sworn statement on the subject. Here is the salient part:

"About January 1990 Anne purchased a diary, a red leather back diary for £25...through a firm in the 1986 Writers and Artists Year book...when it arrived it was no use, it was too small..."

Now, in Post #1 of the Acquiring A Victorian Diary thread, David reproduces an advert, placed on behalf of Mike, requesting a "unused or partly used diary dating from 1880-1890, must have at least 20 blank pages".

Although the dates don't match, this advertisement was placed in 1992, Mike could have got mixed up. I'd therefore assumed that you were arguing this advertisement resulted in the red diary.

Okay, if that's the case, the reason, of course, that this diary was unsuitable was because it was too small, as noted by Mike in the aforementioned affidavit. However, in these circumstances, Mike's failure to obtain a suitable diary on this occasion wasn't because it was such a difficult endeavour, but because he'd omitted to stipulate minimum and maximum size requirements in the advertisement. And, unless he was having a really bad day at the office-as this is Mike we're talking about, it's possible!-I don't think he could have come to any other reasonable conclusion.

Does this make sense? Or have I totally misunderstood your argument?

[caz]

I'll get back to you on this tomorrow, John, if I may.

My better half is running me a bath - so he must think I need one!

Love,

Caz
X

[John G]

Well doesn't that tell you that some of us want the truth, regardless of whether it's more inconvenient than convenient? If there is no reliable supporting evidence for one story [Anne/Devereux], and not enough - yet - for the others [Barrett hoax or Maybrick's floorboards], and none of them makes perfect sense alongside all the information we have to date, it's not a case of 'latching on' to the one we would most like to be true, but trying to find support for, or evidence against, each of the possible alternatives.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

Yes, I absolutely agree. However, the starting point for me has to be the "one-off" problem. For instance, I believe Sam, in an earlier post, said that the earliest example he could find of the phrase being used in common parlance, so outside of the strictly technical engineering context, was the 1980s (apologies if my recollection is incorrect).

Therefore, on this basis, I consider it highly unlikely that The Diary could have been written prior to this period, or whenever the phrase entered common parlance. I would therefore conclude that The Diary was probably forged by either Mike, or someone known to him, or a combination of the two (although my views are not set in stone, and I have been known, on more than one occasion, to change my mind on important issues!)

Could Mike have been the forger. Well, unlike some I do believe The Diary was well-written. In fact, in the preface of Shirley's book, the highly respected criminologist, Professor David Canter, refers to the writing in glowing terms, concluding that if it was written by a forger, that individual would be a "...shy, but emotionally disturbed genius, who combined the novelist's art with an intelligent understanding of serial killers, the agreed facts of Jack the Ripper and James Maybrick." (Harrison, 1994).

Does this sound like Mike? Well, no-one who interviewed him seems to think him capable of the forgery, and they certainly don't refer to him in the way Professor Canter describes the character of a possible forger.

Moreover, as I've noted before, Mike seems to me to be simply too erratic, too ill-disciplined to have succeeded with such a project, at least without a great deal of help.

I would also refer to Caroline's recollection of her dad pestering Tony for information on the telephone. Now assuming Caroline's memory is correct, and further assuming that Mike hadn't set up some madcap fake telephone call for his daughters benefit, the implication is that Mike was unaware of the origins of the diary, at least at this stage.

All in all, it's a very murky, and complex case, and I would therefore advise myself to submit only provisional conclusions!

[John G]

I'll get back to you on this tomorrow, John, if I may.

My better half is running me a bath - so he must think I need one!

Love,

Caz
X

No problem Caz. I'm about to start my own process of relaxation by reading a crime thriller, whilst drinking a cool beer, as my brain is starting to feel fuzzy!

[John G]

I should just provide an update to Post #207. David informs me, on another a thread, that there was a Thames TV programme called "one-off" broadcast in September 1969; the programme was about unique individuals. Therefore the phrase must have been in common usage during the 1960s.

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Perhaps I've misunderstood your point. My understanding is that you had postulated that Mike had doubts about the diary he allegedly received from TD. He therefore decided to see how easy it would be to obtain a suitable Victorian diary- the maroon diary-and, following his failed effort, concluded that it wouldn't be easy at all. Ergo, the TD diary was probably genuine. Is that correct?

Not quite, John, no. Let me try again and apologies for not being clearer!

I do think that anyone being shown this old book for the first time would have been sceptical to say the least. "Jack the Ripper?? You have got to be kidding me". However, this is Mike we are talking about. And if he had nothing to do with its creation, but was first shown it either in 1991 by TD or, far more likely IMHO, on March 9th 1992 by EL, we can only imagine what his immediate reaction might have been.

Well we know exactly what he did on or around March 9th 1992: he rang a literary agent and made the first known and documented mention of JtR's diary. He also made the telephone enquiry about diaries with blank pages from the 1880s. If this was his way of investigating the likelihood of EL [or A.N.Other] having pulled his leg with an easily obtainable unused or partly used Victorian diary, we can only guess what his reaction was when the little red diary arrived. But he wasn't sent half a dozen items that would all have been a forger's dream, and by then he had already interested Doreen to the point that she wanted him to bring his diary to London, so he decided to take the plunge and was rewarded when all went well on April 13th.

The alternative, that the Maybrick diary had been a work in progress for up to two years previously, and Mike was only just now, on or around March 9th 1992, tasked with ascertaining if anyone might be interested in publishing such an artefact [??], and then trying to find a suitable 'diary' [which is what he asked for] in which to house the prepared text, strikes me as stretching things to breaking point in an attempt to make things fit with Mike's shaky old affidavit from January 1995.

Provisionally assuming that it is, I will refer to you to Mike's original sworn statement on the subject. Here is the salient part:

"About January 1990 Anne purchased a diary, a red leather back diary for £25...through a firm in the 1986 Writers and Artists Year book...when it arrived it was no use, it was too small..."

Now, in Post #1 of the Acquiring A Victorian Diary thread, David reproduces an advert, placed on behalf of Mike, requesting a "unused or partly used diary dating from 1880-1890, must have at least 20 blank pages".

Although the dates don't match, this advertisement was placed in 1992, Mike could have got mixed up. I'd therefore assumed that you were arguing this advertisement resulted in the red diary.

Yes, you assumed correctly. I have no doubt whatsoever that the advert placed in 1992 resulted in Mike being sent the little red diary.

Okay, if that's the case, the reason, of course, that this diary was unsuitable was because it was too small, as noted by Mike in the aforementioned affidavit. However, in these circumstances, Mike's failure to obtain a suitable diary on this occasion wasn't because it was such a difficult endeavour, but because he'd omitted to stipulate minimum and maximum size requirements in the advertisement. And, unless he was having a really bad day at the office-as this is Mike we're talking about, it's possible!-I don't think he could have come to any other reasonable conclusion.

But this supposes that Mike was telling the truth in 1995, when claiming that the little red diary was evidence of an attempt to find a suitable book to house the forged diary. He was using its small size to explain why the attempt obviously failed, when anyone with two brain cells to rub together would have specified a minimum page size to begin with if they were really hoping to use it for that purpose. It's a point I've made more than once and all I got were excuses for why Mike might have been unable to get this crucial detail included in the advert, even supposing he thought to ask.

Trying to ascertain the general availability to a potential prankster of 1880s diaries with blank pages would have been one thing; trying to obtain one suitable for housing the prepared Maybrick diary text would have been quite another. If Mike had had up to two years for this task, and the text was now ready to go, barring any last-minute amendments, one has to ask what he was thinking of with that advert, assuming it was worded roughly in line with his request.

None of the entries are dated [apart from the final one], but they cover a period from early 1888 to May 1889 and 63 pages of the guardbook measuring approx 11 x 8.5 inches, so by asking for a 'diary' - singular and any size - dating from 1880 to 1890, Mike would already have been lessening his chances significantly of getting anything a forger could have used for the text as we know it.

Is that any better?

Love,

Caz
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