Inspiration for the Fake 'Diary'

[caz]

Not if it was created prior to 1970, Jonathan. And I prefer to put a little more faith in the scientists (the Rendell Team of 1993) who tried - but failed - to prove it "glaringly modern" and had to fall back on "prior to 1970" than I'd put in any of the claims that relied on Barrett as a source of information.

Misinformation is all he could ever be trusted to supply.

By the way, I never really got the claim that the diary author must have read "eight little whores" in order to come up with the age-old idea of a counting rhyme. "Three Little Maids From School" comes a lot closer, and a revival of the Mikado was performed to a packed Savoy during the first half of 1888.

Love,

Caz
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[Jonathan H]

... then maybe somebody in Mike Barrett's circle?

For Chris George

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/maybrick_diary/mb-mc.html

[PaulB]

Hi Jonathan and Paul

Perhaps one of you could point out to me where in the Maybrick Diary there is material that appears to come from McCormick. I read Harris's dissertation some time ago. As far as I know he was just making a comparison with the McCormick's fabrications, and was also using the Diary as a way to show he had exposed McCormick's falsehoods.

Best regards

Chris

As I recall it was the little whores poem in particular. Among other non-McCormick anachronisms was 'tin matchbox, empty' and 'Poste House'.

[PaulB]

Yes, I see your point - a hoax created before 1970 by people who did not realise they were being hoaxed by McCormick. Poetic justice.

Of course that it surfaced when it did, with people telling different stories and so on, would suggest that it is a more recent hoax than 1970.

It depends on what 'different stories' you mean. Initially there was one story, then that changed as other factors came to bear, such as emotional crises, acrimonious marriage break ups, heavy drinking, the influence of outsiders... What truth, if any, lay within all this? It's hard to know. But if Mike didn't create the thing himself...

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Jonathan and Paul

Perhaps one of you could point out to me where in the Maybrick Diary there is material that appears to come from McCormick. I read Harris's dissertation some time ago. As far as I know he was just making a comparison with McCormick's fabrications, and was also using the Diary as a way to show he had exposed McCormick's falsehoods.

Best regards

Chris

[Jonathan H]

Yes, I see your point - a hoax created before 1970 by people who did not realise they were being hoaxed by McCormick. Poetic justice.

Of course that it surfaced when it did, with people telling different stories and so on, would suggest that it is a more recent hoax than 1970.

[PaulB]

I see, thanks.

The reason I think it is a modern fake is partly textual.

I was persuaded by this Melvin Harris article, having already felt that the provenance was too dubious.

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/maybrick_diary/mb-mc.html

That the Diary's 'DNA' is contaminated by material invented by McCormick, but thought to be authentic by the unwary reader -- or hoaxer.

McCormick had also provided the demonstrably false tale about Dutton-Backert, which was the 'clincher' bridging source between the 1889 obits and the 1894 Mac Report(s) confirming Druitt as a contemporaneous suspect during the 1888-9 investigation.

Cullen and Farson both bought this, side-lining Macnaghten's memoirs which conceded Druitt was a posthumous suspect, and thus did enormous long-term damage to untangling the knot involving Jack the Ripper's true identity, historically speaking.

This provided the vacuum which was filled by the Royal hoax, and then, much more plausibly, by the local poor, madman (Cohen, Aaron Kosminski) then the Maybrick Hoax, and then much more plausibly Dr. Tumblety was rediscovered, and then this was followed by the [sincere] Cornwall nonsense about Sickert.

Yet culturally, Maybrick and Sickert did represent an orbiting back to the mythos of the Ripper as English gentleman (of sorts).

Hi Jonathan,
McCormick wrote pre-1970, in 1959/1962 in fact, so any McCormick contamination doesn't influence Caz's statement that she believes the diary was composed pre-1970 and why she challenges arguments that the diary is "obviously modern" (meaning a post-centenary invention, or post-1990 creation by Mike Barrett). And if Mike Barrett is taken out of the frame, an early date for the composition of the diary, despite the internal problems such an idea presents, becomes a reasonable postulate. What Caz is fighting against is a rather glib dismissal of the diary as "obviously modern" and by implication the creation of Mike Barrett when this is not altogether supported.
Paul

[Jonathan H]

I see, thanks.

The reason I think it is a modern fake is partly textual.

I was persuaded by this Melvin Harris article, having already felt that the provenance was too dubious.

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/maybrick_diary/mb-mc.html

That the Diary's 'DNA' is contaminated by material invented by McCormick, but thought to be authentic by the unwary reader -- or hoaxer.

McCormick had also provided the demonstrably false tale about Dutton-Backert, which was the 'clincher' bridging source between the 1889 obits and the 1894 Mac Report(s) confirming Druitt as a contemporaneous suspect during the 1888-9 investigation.

Cullen and Farson both bought this, side-lining Macnaghten's memoirs which conceded Druitt was a posthumous suspect, and thus did enormous long-term damage to untangling the knot involving Jack the Ripper's true identity, historically speaking.

This provided the vacuum which was filled by the Royal hoax, and then, much more plausibly, by the local poor, madman (Cohen, Aaron Kosminski) then the Maybrick Hoax, and then much more plausibly Dr. Tumblety was rediscovered, and then this was followed by the [sincere] Cornwall nonsense about Sickert.

Yet culturally, Maybrick and Sickert did represent an orbiting back to the mythos of the Ripper as English gentleman (of sorts).

[caz]

Hi Jonathan,

I think it was penned prior to 1970 by someone who, for whatever reason, was unwilling or unable to make the handwriting look like James Maybrick's.

Love,

Caz
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[Jonathan H]

So you think the Diary is a Victorian or Edwardian fake, have I got that right?

[caz]

Now that is what I would call a very strange post, Jonathan.

If I 'reacted' to everyone who questions the diary's authenticity I wouldn't have time to fart.

Besides, what didn't you understand about: 'in A.N.Other's Handwriting' that makes you conclude that I don't question its authenticity?

I had better 'react' as if I have just personally attacked myself in that case, for saying that Maybrick didn't write it.

Lighten up Jonathan, at least neither of us is pushing a crackpot ripper theory of our own. You continue to push for Mac 'knowing' that Druitt dunnit, and I'll continue to challenge any unsupported gut feelings for the diary being a modern (as opposed to a pre-1970) hoax.

Is that fair enough?

Love,

Caz
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[Jonathan H]

To Caz

Yes, I've seen this before with your strange posts.

The Dodgy Diary is somehow your personal crusade, and so you react to anybody who questions its authenticity as if it is a personal attack on you?

[Phil Carter]

Except that the joke seems to have been on the Barretts - the only two who would be directly implicated in a modern fake, and haven't they done well out of it - not!

Love,

Caz
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Hello Caz,

In fairness, my post was a generalisation, tongue in cheek and I used the word 'perhaps' re money. Apart from that you are bang on in all you say. If anyone made money out of it, it wasnt the Barretts.

Best wishes

Phil

[caz]

With such a source the provenance must be uncluttered by false trails, confessions of deceit, fortuitous supporting artifacts and admissions.

On that basis the Dairy is clearly, glaringly a modern fake, and yet the hoaxer(s) are to be congratulated for first working out how to get around the forensic examinations (the debacle of the Hitler Diaries could have been their anti-Template).

If you had the powers of the police, you could check out who checked out books on the Maybrick trial in the years before the Diary surfaced. This was how American law-enforcers exposed Melvin Dummar's Howard Hughes hoax will in 1976, as his fingerprint was found on a book about an Hughes hoax.

The thing is, Jonathan (and it's diary, not dairy), what kind of 'uncluttered' provenance would you be looking for in order to support the scientists' view that it was written 'prior to 1970'? What clear provenance would you expect to be available for a document of this nature in the best case scenario?

It's hardly going to be listed in a catalogue, is it? Or on anyone's list of personal effects: "One Confession to the Whitechapel Murders, by James Maybrick, but in A.N.Other's Handwriting". It's not something that anyone should knowingly have had lying around the house, is it?

Yes, the issue of provenance has always been one of the biggest sticks to bash the diary with while intoning "glaringly modern"; but then it would be, wouldn't it? Think of the perfect provenance for an item like this and then use your highly tuned imagination to work out why it would not have come equipped with it to the public stage.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Hello Bridewell,

People attempting to pull the wool ouer people's eyes like a giant April Fool's joke in Ripperology? And perhaps make money out of it? Unthinkable.
People making up things in book form? Nah- impossible.
I predict we havent seen the last of the escapades....sadly.

Best wishes

Phil

Except that the joke seems to have been on the Barretts - the only two who would be directly implicated in a modern fake, and haven't they done well out of it - not!

Love,

Caz
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