The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Yes, it was considered that the "diary" was created to help in Florence's trial, but the conclusion was that James being Jack the Ripper would have provided Florence with a motive for murdering him and that no matter how sympathetic people might be towards Florence for taking such an action, it would still have been murder and perhaps have resulted in her execution. I think Florence's lawyers wanted a "not guilty" verdict, not to provide mitigation for a "guilty" one.

Of course, that doesn't mean the "diary" could not have been produced for the purpose you suggest, but never used.

One of the problems that has always dogged "diary" is that people don't ask "when" the "diary" was created, but let the argument polarise into whether the "diary" is genuine or a modern fake, and it's a circular argu,emt that goes nowhere.

Hi Paul,

I was wondering what you thought about David’s suggested 11 day timeline for the creation of the diary? It’s in his Pillar Of Sand article in Section E - Provenance.

[Yabs]

Didn’t Maybrick take out a £2000 life insurance on himself on Oct 3rd, 1888?

It seems unlikely, that during the height of the murders, Maybrick was writing about murder and revenge with Florence as the focus, when in reality, he was making her the beneficiary to his life and failing to mention it in the diary.

[Sam Flynn]

What time frame would you be looking at?

On the basis of those phrases, from the 1950s onwards. Taking into consideration other aspects of the Diary (e.g. mention of empty tin matchboxes), no earlier than the late 1980s.

[Iconoclast]

What time frame would you be looking at?

Hi Paul,

If we are to use as reliable 'fact' the mere understanding and personal certainties of those who believe they know the derivation of the English language better than any (regardless of whether the proper evidence for it still exists) then we must exclude any authorship prior to the "latter half of the 20th century". Of course, we can immediately discard 36/50ths of that time as creating it before 1987 was not possible (I may as well be as categorical on this point as they would be on theirs though - like them - I don't entirely have unequivocation on my side).

This means the master-forger/researchers got to work no earlier than the point in 1987 when Fido's work was published and no later than the April (?) day in 1992 when Bongo took the hoax to London. So just five years. During that time there must have existed the 'usual suspects' to whom the police could have turned to break the case, but strangely Scotland Yard did not break the case so we can only conclude that the existing known master-forgers/researchers did not grass up the Maybrick hoaxers or else were them but resisted Scotland Yard's experienced interrogations. We should conclude from this that the Maybrick forgers were working on their first masterpiece.

Worryingly, that leaves us with a first-time forgery focused on about the least likely candidate possible. No real doubt that the end result would be lucky to last 27 days before being revealed for what it was, the 'shoddy' hoax we were all assured it was by impartial experts such as Melvin Harris (whose book naming Stephenson as Jack was to be published in 1994 and which clearly had no influence on his integrity and objectives). But it wasn't nailed within the month which causes us all a huge headache for now we have a

first-time forgery focused on about the least likely candidate possible surviving the most vitriolic scrutiny in forging history. This is one-hit wonder time, isn't it? This is Terry Jacks and his sickly sweet 'Seasons in the Sun'. Or Leicester City catching everyone cold in 2016. It's a miracle, and it would appear that Bongo Barrett was the inspiration behind it. It's so solid - how on earth could anyone contradict it?

PS 'Seasons in the Sun' was the poor man's English re-write of the outstanding Jacques Brel's 'Le Moribund'. Where millions hear only the sugary crap dished-up by Jacks, I hear the genius described by Jacques. Story of my life, perhaps (though don't get too excited, I ain't no dying man just yet!).

[PaulB]

I know that, Graham.
That's fine, but I'm personally certain that "one off instance" and "spreads mayhem" are 20th Century expressions, which simply couldn't have been used by anyone in the late 19th. I also believe that there are one or two other phrases in the Diary that indicate that it's a late hoax.
Not at all - I'd love to know who wrote it. It's just that I think it would be a complete waste of time to look for potential authors from the late 19th or early 20th Centuries.

What time frame would you be looking at?