The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[Iconoclast]

Nah, it really doesn't pass the smell test.

A document of this potential importance rather self-evidently requires a bit more than some ****** smelling it, for ****'s sake (whether metaphorically or literally).

Written in a book/album that a historical document examiner immediately tells us should raise suspicions.

And - of course - we know with unwavering certainty (you even mention the obvious example below) that historical document examiners cannot be wrong.

The diaries provinance is also very sketchy.

The diary's provenance - if categorically on the record from 1889 to April 13, 1992 - would self-evidently help the case but a lack of provenance is not evidence that an item is fraudulent. It is not even evidence that its provenance is weak. It is simply evidence that its provenance back to 1889 is not on the record therefore it cannot be assessed in terms of informing us whether or not the artefact is genuine or not.

An extremely controversial item that comes from a recently deceased family member or friend is probably fake.

Let me correct you on that, an extremely controversial item that comes from a recently deceased family member or friend and which has no established provenance can probably be more safely assumed to be a fake though our assumptions mean nothing to the ultimate truth of the matter.

The most famous serial killer in history just happens to leave behind a full confession and an account of his innermost demons.

If you were the most famous serial killer in history is it literally beyond the realms of all possibility that you may have kept a record of your infamous crimes? Are records more likely kept by the innocent than the guilty? By the ordinary life than the out-of-the-ordinary life? And can you prove this to us, if this is the position you wish to take? Have psychologists studied this in oft-repeated social experiments and established an enduring trait in serial killers that they lack all interest in recording their crimes? And peer-reviewed journals have reinforced this principle as an unyielding psychological truth about that particular type of human evil?

I have a Hitler diary available to anyone who wants to buy it and a Lee Harvey Oswald notebook in which he details his plan to assassinate the President.

But here's the rub on this tediously oft-repeated trope (I think it is so tedious, I may myself have occasionally been gripped by its frightening undertow), you don't have a Hitler diary and you don't have an Oswald diary. If you did, and we know you don't because these things are obviously extremely rare in the record, and they were fake (don't buy the Porsche just yet), do you imagine that it would be possible that 30 years later their authenticity or inauthenticity would remain the stuff of considerable and rather heated debate?

I too try to look at these sort of things through human behaviour. The case is ground zero for charlatans and hucksters. Too much money to be made from a gullible press and public.

Can you think of a known hoax (not an imagined hoax, or an I-wish-it-were-an-established-hoax) where the hoaxer had bought that Porsche you had your eye on with your hastily-concocted Hitler and Oswald diaries?

Mike Barrett had a share of the copyright on the Victorian scrapbook so he made about £40,000 out of the book sales. Shirley Harrison and publisher Robert Smith presumably made similar amounts. But - if none of those created the fake - then they are not the example you are craving, are they? So when has a hoaxer actually made the fortune you so confidently tell us has been made from a gullible press and public?

Your casual analysis is a common danger on this site. In my brilliant Society's Pillar, I even dedicate a chapter to this ('An Arsenal for the Indolent'). In my even more brillianter Society's Pillar 2025, there will be a chapter which will pretty much demolish any wishful-thinking you've ever done regarding Mike Barrett's authorship of the scrapbook - and all pretty much from his own words, painfully transcribed by me (and others) over many long days and weeks. You can order your copy now simply by being nice to me.

Ike

[erobitha]

And is this 'notebook' you keep at work a used photo album with the initial pages cut out and discarded?

You seem to be suggesting it is normal 'human behaviour' to do such a thing, so I was just wondering...

Well I don’t commit murder so my notebook is quite innocuous. If I did commit murders I’d probably want something that would not look out of place on my bookshelf or found in a drawer.

I do keep my PIN number as a phone number in my phone book of my phone. Why would I do that?

[erobitha]

I'd say rewritten by the "Devereux Committee" from the original, which was then discarded.

I will say Scott, it is not a theory I can rule out.

[erobitha]

Nah, it really doesn't pass the smell test. Written in a book/album that a historical document examiner immediately tells us should raise suspicions. The diaries provinance is also very sketchy. An extremely controversial item that comes from a recently deceased family member or friend is probably fake. The most famous serial killer in history just happens to leave behind a full confession and an account of his innermost demons. I have a Hitler diary available to anyone who wants to buy it and a Lee Harvey Oswald notebook in which he details his plan to assassinate the President.

I too try to look at these sort of things through human behaviour. The case is ground zero for charlatans and hucksters. Too much money to be made from a gullible press and public.

So much money was made you’re right. What an absolute golden goose the diary itself was for Mike Barrett who earned himself a whopping pound for his hard work hoaxing.

Yes he received royalties from Harrison’s book so it would be disingenuous to claim he did not benefit on some level. But the smell test to me of Barrett writing the journal has a very different whiff to the scent you are sniffing.

[Scott Nelson]

I'd say rewritten by the "Devereux Committee" from the original, which was then discarded.

[jason_c]

The document was not a diary or intended to be one.

A notebook of random musings if you will. I use a notebook everyday at work. No dates. Just notes to remind me of things I want to be reminded of. It’s for my own use.

I prefer to look at such things through the eyes of human behaviour. Not what a document examiner thinks or doesn’t think on a whim. Scientific evidence I’m all for.

Opinions not so much.

Nah, it really doesn't pass the smell test. Written in a book/album that a historical document examiner immediately tells us should raise suspicions. The diaries provinance is also very sketchy. An extremely controversial item that comes from a recently deceased family member or friend is probably fake. The most famous serial killer in history just happens to leave behind a full confession and an account of his innermost demons. I have a Hitler diary available to anyone who wants to buy it and a Lee Harvey Oswald notebook in which he details his plan to assassinate the President.

I too try to look at these sort of things through human behaviour. The case is ground zero for charlatans and hucksters. Too much money to be made from a gullible press and public.

[rjpalmer]

I use a notebook everyday at work. No dates. Just notes to remind me of things I want to be reminded of. It’s for my own use.

I prefer to look at such things through the eyes of human behaviour.

And is this 'notebook' you keep at work a used photo album with the initial pages cut out and discarded?

You seem to be suggesting it is normal 'human behaviour' to do such a thing, so I was just wondering...

[erobitha]

There is a YouTube video out there with a document examiner whose job it is to look for fakes. The video isn't specifically about the diary but the examiner touches upon it. He says one immediately tell for a likely hoax is that Victorian era blank diaries/writing paper is very hard to come by. Whilst not categorical proof the diary is a fake the fact it's not actually written in a diary(or even writing paper as I understand it) should at least ring alarm bells.

The document was not a diary or intended to be one.

A notebook of random musings if you will. I use a notebook everyday at work. No dates. Just notes to remind me of things I want to be reminded of. It’s for my own use.

I prefer to look at such things through the eyes of human behaviour. Not what a document examiner thinks or doesn’t think on a whim. Scientific evidence I’m all for.

Opinions not so much.

[jason_c]

There is a YouTube video out there with a document examiner whose job it is to look for fakes. The video isn't specifically about the diary but the examiner touches upon it. He says one immediately tell for a likely hoax is that Victorian era blank diaries/writing paper is very hard to come by. Whilst not categorical proof the diary is a fake the fact it's not actually written in a diary(or even writing paper as I understand it) should at least ring alarm bells.

[John Wheat]

But who hoaxed it, John? Any ideas that don't show you up as one of RJ Palmer's 'most gullible and mentally lazy' of Ripperologists?

[Clue: I don't think we can pin it on Konny Kujau this time.]

Love,

Caz
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I'm not sure. However I would say the most gullible Ripperologists are those that believe James Maybrick wrote the diary. But what are your thoughts on who wrote the diary?

[caz]

But who hoaxed it, John? Any ideas that don't show you up as one of RJ Palmer's 'most gullible and mentally lazy' of Ripperologists?

[Clue: I don't think we can pin it on Konny Kujau this time.]

Love,

Caz
X

[John Wheat]

By the way, everyone, I'm absolutely raging about this thread ...

It's clearly a modern hoax.

[caz]

Just saw this one...

What RJ wrote was the stuff of fiction, I can only agree.

I'm wondering why Eddie is meant to have been 'beside himself with joy' that Mike ran with the "old book" all the way to the bank, leaving Eddie powerless to do anything about it. He could at least console himself with the thought that Mike was never going to piss on his own chip butty by grassing him up. Mike would just have to lie about where he got the diary if he wanted to claim ownership and make his fortune - "simple" for someone who could lie as easily as breathing.

Once the diary changed hands, what could it possibly matter to Eddie what pack of lies Mike might tell about it in the future, as long as those lies were designed to distance Eddie even further from the hot property, as they surely would be? We can see how discombobulated Mike was in 1993, when he thought Eddie was threatening to take back control and muscle in on the spoils by claiming to have found the diary. Eddie knew that was the last thing Mike wanted. Mike's only concern was to stay centre stage, which meant telling whatever lies would steer people away from Eddie and the truth, and in any other direction that suited him and his audience at the time.

Make no mistake, Mike was not doing any of it for Eddie's benefit, but Eddie would have been protected nonetheless, whether it had been just the one lie concerning the Devereux provenance, or a dozen contradictory tales of Liverpool before breakfast, for the gullible and mentally lazy to suck up like osmosis.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Caz. You made an interesting comment about Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination conspiracy:

How could the conspirators have known if he had played the part well enough, or given them an impossible task to set him up? Has anything like this ever happened, even within the realms of fiction?

Yes, actually: the role that Mike and Anne Barrett played in the Great Battlecrease Heist of 9 March 1992.

What enormous luck for your nest of thieves that the Diary of Jack the Ripper was quickly and cheaply sold to the most erratic man in Merseyside--a man, no less, who had previously lent a copy of Tales of Liverpool (with its two chapters on the Maybrick case) to Tony Devereux, thus leading the delusional 'modern hoax' theorist on a wild goose chase. And what a second stroke of luck that Mike would go on to find a second copy of the same booklet and even decide to reference it in a set of bogus research notes that he and his wife would decide to create for their literary agent. How could Eddie have known it would play out so well? And could Eddie have predicted that Mike would make the bizarre decision to determine a fair market price for the Diary of Jack the Ripper by buying a blank Victorian Diary, 1880-1890, from a bookseller in Oxford? Or hide his writing career of the 1980s from Shirley Harrison and Robert Smith, and lie about when and why he purchased a word processor? Lucky for the Battlecrease thieves, Mike played the patsy to perfection.

And could Eddie Lyons have predicted in his wildest dreams that Mike would even go on to CONFESS to writing the hoax, or that Anne would come forward and claim that she had seen the diary as far back as the late 1960s and even convince her terminally ill father to back her up? Or that Anne would demonstrate her own writing ambitions and talents by co-authoring a biography of Florence Maybrick?

No; to me, this is mind blowing. Maybe we needed another Warren Commission to unravel it all. It's too bad we didn't enlist Nick Warren to help.

Eddie must have been beside himself with joy when he realized that Mike and Anne were the perfect patsies---that their odd and suspicious behavior would so thoroughly lead the most gullible and mentally lazy of the Ripperologists so far away from the truth.

As you say, it is the stuff of fiction.

[caz]

Hi Scotty,

I seem to remember somebody did once suggest Anne could be ambidextrous, which I took to mean that, like you, they thought the available examples appeared to show she was normally left-handed, while the diary appeared to have been written by a right-handed person.

I may be wrong, but the direction of all the diagonal crossings out in the actual diary [bottom left to top right, as opposed to top left to bottom right] do suggest to me that a right-handed person wrote it.

Love,

Caz
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