The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[APerno]

fyi if anyone wants to really know the history of the phrase one off instance and how it proves the diary is a hoax (like if you actiually needed yet another fact that does that) all they need to do is google orsam books and click on articles.

the definitive answer to the maybrick nonsense(and many ripper related bull shite) will be found here.

Read it, thank you, good read. Interesting that someone could still be successful, publishing wise, this late with the Diary. 25 Years of the Diary of Jack The Ripper, Robert Smith. He resurrected a bad argument and got everyone to argue it again anyway.

This has probably been addressed before (god, around here I feel like I always have to lead with that disclaimer, LOL). Has anyone considered that someone was forging the diary with the intent of gaining Florence Maybrick a pardon or parole? Circa 1895

Use the Diary to paint the deceased Maybrick as the Ripper; the roost needn't hold long, just long enough for the public to response to the exciting (false) revelation and pressure the courts into releasing her.

Just a passing thought.

[Iconoclast]

I suppose the diary being a hoax is the most likely answer; it is the simplest explanation, after all. However, if the diary was created by a hoaxer, I've had some nagging questions that I can't resolve:

- If you're going to pick a subject as your fake Ripper, why choose Maybrick? The innocuous Liverpool cotton merchant seems about as unlikely a Ripper suspect as you can come across. Why not choose a far sexier subject like Chapman or Druitt or Tumblety, or hell, just about ANYONE else?

Hi tanta07,

This is one of the most bemusing aspects of the whole scrapbook case. Of all the eligible males alive in 1888, our 'hoaxer' homed-in on the most obvious of candidates - yes, the 50 year old well-respected businessman from a prosperous part of Liverpool who had no overt link with the east end of London. It's so obvious, I'm amazed his name didn't come up years earlier!

There are contradictions at every turn in the Maybrick case - some working for him and some working against him. It does your head in at times!

Cheers,

Ike

[Sam Flynn]

"I was clever. George would be proud of me, told the bitch in my position I could not afford a scandal. I struck her several times an eye for an eye, ha ha too many interfering servants, damn the bitches."

The passage comes directly after the reference to the Grand National and is an obvious (a little TOO obvious) reference to the fight later that night, in which the "interfering servants" heard Maybrick scream "such a scandal will be all over town tomorrow." The maid had tried to intercede, etc. It's all in the standard books on the Maybrick case.

Thanks, RP. What immediately follows is a couple of pages of attempted poetry ("Victoria, Victoria, the queen of them all"), and my eyes glazed over. Had they not, I'd have seen that the passage you quoted appearing immediately after the "poem".

I agree with you that the reference to the fight is a little too obvious, and that the info is available in the standard books about the case.

[rjpalmer]

Could you clarify for us all how this passage could have been made LESS obvious (that is, which bits are too obviously flagged to be believable)?

What I mean is this. If the Maybrick Diary was genuine, or even created by a clever forger doing original research, we would expect to find many instances where the diarist strays from all the standard bits that can be found in all the standard retellings of the Maybrick trial. But the diarist doesn't do that. We get precisely what we would expect to get: The Grand National, "Bobo", the interfering Mrs. Yapp, the fight upstairs in the bedroom, Brierley. When it comes to the "Maybrick" bits, the diary never strays from the expected story-line; it's like the hoaxer is merely ticking off boxes. A, B, C, D.

An analogy would be a hoaxer faking the Diary of George Washington, and merely mentioning the cutting down of the cherry tree, the wooden false teeth, crossing the Potomac, and freezing his arse off at Valley Forge. It's too "pat" and too simplistic to be credible. It's clearly based on secondary sources.

By comparison, we know that the real James Maybrick sat several times for a portrait in October 1888. We know Maybrick took an extended walking trip of Wales, sometimes walking as much as 20 miles a day. This took place in early 1889...a big event in anyone's life, but not a whisper of it in the Diary, apparently because the hoaxer, relying strictly on the standard retelling of the Maybrick trial, didn't know about it.

That's what I mean, Ike. Not just this passage. The whole she-bang. It's too pat. Not a whisper of truly obscure knowledge, which would be extraordinary to see in a private journal supposedly hidden for 100 years.

[Iconoclast]

The passage comes directly after the reference to the Grand National and is an obvious (a little TOO obvious) reference ...

Could you clarify for us all how this passage could have been made LESS obvious (that is, which bits are too obviously flagged to be believable)?