One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

OK, do we have surviving examples of Maybrick's informal hand, then?

If not, this is a difference which makes no difference, as far as I can see. It just offers another IF on which to hang hope that it is really Maybrick's diary.

Or it's a valid challenge that we don't have examples of Maybrick's writing other than the fancy-dan copperplate of the day.

It's nothing to sweat about. It's just a simple fact. We don't know how Maybrick wrote in his private journals when he was high on blood-lust and arsenic.

We don't have to produce his informal hand to demonstrate the obvious (that his copperplate formal hand was unlikely to be the only hand with which he wrote).

[Observer]

That's my view also. The title of the thread being what it is:

"One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary"

leads me to acknowledge that it is (non-use of a contemporary diary apart) a very good hoax - but a hoax nonetheless. The title also invites us to reverse the norm and prove that the diary isn't genuine. The accepted protocol is that those making the positive assertion should prove that it is.

I have difficulty in believing that an item which someone has admitted to forging is not actually a forgery. That said, others are perfectly entitled to their view that the item is what it purports to be, just as I am within my rights to disagree with them.

It's not even a good hoax Bridewell.

[Observer]

But what if it wasn't written to deceive the world, Observer, but was someone's idea of a funny little game at the Maybricks' expense?

If it had been a modern hoax, created to deceive the public at large, which had to be written in that scrap book for lack of a better alternative, there would have been even more reason to make it look like Maybrick's handwriting - and any provenance would have been better than "I got it from a mate who then died without saying how he got it". Battlecrease itself would have been the very best of course, but Mike Barrett always hotly denied that one.

Go figure, as they say.

Love,

Caz
X

How would a modern forger obtain a sample of Maybrick's hand Caz?

[Sam Flynn]

If it had been a modern hoax, created to deceive the public at large, which had to be written in that scrap book for lack of a better alternative, there would have been even more reason to make it look like Maybrick's handwriting

Not if the forgers were as thick as mince - which would seem to be borne out by the appalling grammar, not to mention the amateurish tone, of the diary itself.

[Henry Flower]

Not if the forgers were as thick as mince - which would seem to be borne out by the appalling grammar, not to mention the amateurish tone, of the diary itself.

I can't disagree with that. From start to finish there is not a phrase in it that does not sound rather like a twentieth century unemployed scrap metal dealer imitating what he thinks a prosperous and well-traveled Victorian businessman might have sounded like.

Apart from the amateurish and occasionally mock-Victorian-melodrama tone, the twentieth century handwriting, the multiple lies concerning its provenance, the fact that it's a scrapbook with pages torn from the front, and contains no (disprovable) information not readily accessible from two or three easily-available books, it's quite well done. I mean, they had the nous not write it in biro, right?

[Observer]

I can't disagree with that. From start to finish there is not a phrase in it that does not sound rather like a twentieth century unemployed scrap metal dealer imitating what he thinks a prosperous and well-traveled Victorian businessman might have sounded like.

Apart from the amateurish and occasionally mock-Victorian-melodrama tone, the twentieth century handwriting, the multiple lies concerning its provenance, the fact that it's a scrapbook with pages torn from the front, and contains no (disprovable) information not readily accessible from two or three easily-available books, it's quite well done. I mean, they had the nous not write it in biro, right?

Or felt tip. It's a cheese fest right enough.

[Sam Flynn]

I mean, they had the nous not write it in biro, right?

Thanks for the chuckle, Henry!

[Henry Flower]

I don't want to offend any partisans, but in terms of style and content I honestly found the 'Carnac' 'Autobiography of Jack the Ripper' more convincing. I can't put it better than Observer has, the Maybrick thing is a total cheese-fest.

Yes, the Carnac document is the grater of the two.

Groan. Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

[Iconoclast]

It's not even a good hoax Bridewell.

I agree with you Observer, it's not even a hoax.

[Sam Flynn]

I agree with you Observer, it's not even a hoax.

If not a hoax, then - what? A bit of a joke that went too far?

[Observer]

I don't want to offend any partisans, but in terms of style and content I honestly found the 'Carnac' 'Autobiography of Jack the Ripper' more convincing. I can't put it better than Observer has, the Maybrick thing is a total cheese-fest.

Yes, the Carnac document is the grater of the two.

Groan. Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

They say Maybrick was quite fond of slices of Monteray Jack, smothered in tomato sauce of course

[caz]

Yes. If you were James Maybrick it would be the easiest thing in the world to write using James Maybrick's handwriting wouldn't it? I suppose you could contrive an argument that Maybrick deliberately disguised his hand so as to be able to deny authorship if it came to light in his own lifetime, but it would be contrived and would beg the question as to why Maybrick would write the bloody thing in the first place if he was the least bit worried about being caught.

P.s. I don't usually post on Diary Threads because they have a tendency to descend into acrimony. I do so now in the hope that this time it'll be different.

I agree entirely Colin. And you'll get no acrimony from me.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

How many sprouts have you eaten?

None since last Christmas. And now I won't be eating them ever again if I can help it.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Caz, don't worry - I've followed the thread from the start and I know you're not claiming the Diary is the genuine article. But my point was that it's slightly iffy to say on the one hand that MB wasn't sophisticated enough to have personally pulled off a forgery like this one, but on the other to say that if he had been the forger he would've been careful to mimic Maybrick's handwriting and think up a better provenance than he offered for the item.

I agree he wasn't sophisticated. Neither is the hoax diary. His handwriting didn't mimic Maybrick's (or even, more broadly, a Victorian hand) because he didn't have the skill to do so. His provenance was crappy because he didn't have the competence or the opportunity to create a better one.

Am I certain of that?

Absolutely not.

Best x

Hi Henry,

Cheers for that. My response would be that if Mike Barrett had tried to pull off a hoax like this one, intending for it to be taken seriously, I am absolutely 100% certain it would have looked nothing like the diary we have, and he'd have been laughed out of Doreen Montgomery's office before the tea and bikkies arrived. It certainly wasn't penned by Mike, and he would have been sophisticated enough to know how that would have been received.

I agree with you that Mike probably didn't have the ability or opportunity to come up with a better provenance, but he had to tell Doreen something that would convince her he got the thing in good faith. Say it did come from Battlecrease House. How could he have told Doreen that with no explanation for how it came to be in his possession?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

It's not even a good hoax Bridewell.

It didn't have to be, Observer, if it was always intended as a spoof, a burlesque, a parody, a silly piece of mischief, a black comedy - something more akin to the jokey ripper letters sent in by a host of naughty individuals of very variable literary talents, who thought it a hoot to wind up the police and the public and to read about their offerings in the papers. Did they all expect their missives to be taken for genuine communications from a murderer? Or were most of them just having a hat and scarf at the reader's expense?

Or don't you accept such people existed - in their droves - and not just in Victorian and Edwardian times? Those missives didn't write themselves, were not written for profit, and few of the senders were ever identified.

Love,

Caz
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