The Diary — Old Hoax or New or Not a Hoax at All?​

[rjpalmer]

We all have our own ideas, but my belief is that if someone as volatile as Barrett believed for one second that the diary was something other than the modern fake he knew it to be, he never would have transferred its ownership to Robert Smith for a one-pound note. No way.

This is the same bloke who couldn't help brag about the diary on his train ride home from London (which is what allowed Brough to trace him) and who is said to have waved his first royalty check in the air down the boozer. It is well-known that he blew his profits like a drunken sailor. If Barrett didn't know the diary was a fake, and didn't fear getting sent to the slammer, he would have tried to sell it at Sotheby's for a lot more than Johnson tried to sell the watch to Robert E. Davis. Albert Johnson might have been an innocent dupe--I can't say---but Barret surely wasn't. That Barrett sought to have the diary published--which is far more of a gray area legally--instead of selling it outright is significant in itself.

[caz]

Hi Caz,

I don't think I can agree with you when you say that "The diary is not a forgery by any normal definition".

I'm looking at various online dictionaries and they all define forgery, in essence, in the same way that the Forgery Act of 1913 does, namely that "forgery is the making of a false document in order that it may be used as genuine". I don't see any requirement for copying anything to be part of the definition. Art forgers, for example, sometimes copy art works, other times they create new works in the style of an artist. The diary is presented as a text written by James Maybrick. It is supposed to be by him. I don't really know if the forger made an attempt to copy Maybrick's handwriting or not or if he (or she, if you prefer) even knew what his handwriting looked like. It seems to me to be a classic forgery by any definition of the word. And I know it features in Joe Nickell's 1996 book "Detecting Forgery". It was also financially lucrative for its owner.

All the evidence points to the diary having been written after the Second World War and I just can't think of any reason why a forger in that time period would have gone to all that trouble to make it, absent a profit motive. Can you?

Afternoon Herlock,

Yes, Baxendale initially concluded that, in his opinion, the diary ink could date back to 1945, but considered it 'likely' that it had originated since then, so you are not alone.

Thanks for your correction about the definition of forgery, much appreciated. Just out of curiosity, do you know of any examples where an art forger, with a profit motive, has presented their own work as an example of someone else's, by signing it but failing to make it recognisable as the named artist's work, or even broadly in their style? Would they not need to have seen any genuine examples, at the very least, before shelling out for the raw materials, donning their smock and heading up to their atelier to work on their seascape, still life, surrealism or painting by numbers? I don't know why, but I'm reminded of the contortionist and the talcum powder, who is asked to "fart and give us a clue". I suspect most art forgers would need a bit more guidance than that, but what do I know?

Always happy to lighten the mood.

Love,

Caz
X

[Mike J. G.]

Everyone is either looking for clues; believes they've found clues; looks but sees no clues; or doesn't think it's worth looking for any.

I can't find it in my heart to blame any of them for their personal approach.

Love,

Caz
X

Me neither, Caz, we're all fumbling in the dark when it comes to most things Ripper related. The more I learn, the less I know!

Where you privy to any of the talk surrounding the abandoned movie from Billy Friedkin? After the moderate success of From Hell, it's a shame nobody has taken a punt on a Maybrick film, whether based in truth or not.

[caz]

Incidentally, Herlock, you suggest that the diary forger must have been motivated by money because they went to 'all that trouble'.

This conflicts with the argument made by many a Barrett hoax theorist that they hardly needed to go to any trouble at all to concoct the diary - just two or three modern books on the subject matter, no attempt to find out if any of Maybrick's handwriting had survived and the job's a good'un. Thousands of pounds there for the taking.

I'm only surprised that more couples like the Barretts haven't since taken full advantage of this literary loophole that sends people loopy and empties their pockets for so little effort.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Me neither, Caz, we're all fumbling in the dark when it comes to most things Ripper related. The more I learn, the less I know!

Where you privy to any of the talk surrounding the abandoned movie from Billy Friedkin? After the moderate success of From Hell, it's a shame nobody has taken a punt on a Maybrick film, whether based in truth or not.

Sadly not, Mike, although I did once think I was dreaming when I saw Friedkin among my email contacts, so he must have been copied in at one time to a diary discussion we were having. Oddly enough, I had a dream the other night featuring Johnny Depp, but he'd gone off a bit. I dare say he'd have said the same about me.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The Handwriting brings up three possibilities:

1. The alleged Forger didn't know or didn't care if his or her handwriting matched James Maybrick's.*

2. The alleged Forger knew that Serial Killers can and do have multiple "handwriting".

3. The author was James Maybrick and he was a serial killer with different "handwriting".


*Only expert forgers would be able to write in different hands. Since Mike and Anne aren't experts, that means that a non-match with them would be a positive non-match. With serial killers, of course, you can have negative non-matches. Any objection to that would be the real side-step of the issue, or just an inability to put aside your position and suspend doubt to imagine or even conceive of the alternate possibility for even a second for the sake of argument.

4. The author wasn't Maybrick, but was transcribing by hand from someone else's document, which has since been lost or destroyed. The other document may or may not have been the original, and the writing may or may not have looked more like Maybrick's than the surviving example.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Afternoon Herlock,

Yes, Baxendale initially concluded that, in his opinion, the diary ink could date back to 1945, but considered it 'likely' that it had originated since then, so you are not alone.

Thanks for your correction about the definition of forgery, much appreciated. Just out of curiosity, do you know of any examples where an art forger, with a profit motive, has presented their own work as an example of someone else's, by signing it but failing to make it recognisable as the named artist's work, or even broadly in their style? Would they not need to have seen any genuine examples, at the very least, before shelling out for the raw materials, donning their smock and heading up to their atelier to work on their seascape, still life, surrealism or painting by numbers? I don't know why, but I'm reminded of the contortionist and the talcum powder, who is asked to "fart and give us a clue". I suspect most art forgers would need a bit more guidance than that, but what do I know?

Always happy to lighten the mood.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

If you'll forgive the correction, I don't think Baxendale said that the diary ink "could date back to 1945" did he?. What I believe he said was that the diary ink "has originated since 1945" which is a different thing.

As for your question to me, I'm not sure of the purpose of it if you now accept my definition of a forgery. Furthermore, the diary surely isn't an example of a forger presenting his or her own work as an example of someone else's. The diary is presented as text written by James Maybrick. As Roger has mentioned, an attempt appears to have been made to replicate Victorian handwriting. I seem to recall expressions like "frequented my club" which appear to be a (misguided) attempt to replicate the language of a Victorian gentleman. The thing is dated 3 May 1889 and signed "Jack the Ripper". But there are plenty of art forgeries which are not in the style of a particular known artist such as, for example, the sculpture, the Amarna Princess, by the British art forger Shaun Greenhalgh. Michaelangelo, of all people, is known to have created an ancient looking forged Roman statue called The Sleeping Eros with no known artist's name attached to it. But I wonder what the importance of all this is. What does it matter? It's just semantics really isn't it? If the diary was created in the twentieth century, as all the evidence suggests, it's not real and is of no value.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Incidentally, Herlock, you suggest that the diary forger must have been motivated by money because they went to 'all that trouble'.

This conflicts with the argument made by many a Barrett hoax theorist that they hardly needed to go to any trouble at all to concoct the diary - just two or three modern books on the subject matter, no attempt to find out if any of Maybrick's handwriting had survived and the job's a good'un. Thousands of pounds there for the taking.

I'm only surprised that more couples like the Barretts haven't since taken full advantage of this literary loophole that sends people loopy and empties their pockets for so little effort.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz

I don't think my suggestion that the forger went to all that trouble does conflict with an argument that the forger only used a few books to research Maybrick and Jack the Ripper. It may be a relative matter but that in itself still involves going to the trouble of obtaining and reading those books. Then the forger needed to obtain the photograph album, the ink and the nibs. That alone involves quite a bit of time, trouble and presumably expense. Then the text of the diary had to be drafted and then written out in longhand. To me that is quite a lot of time and trouble and suggests a financial motive. In the post you're replying to you, I asked if you could think of any reason why a forger in the latter part of the 20th century would have gone to all that trouble to make it, absent a profit motive. Is that a question you're still pondering or can I take it that you can't think of any other reason? I’m struggling to think of one.

[caz]

Hiya, Caz. I've obviously read it, I even posted the very passage on this thread or another one, there's so many of them I can't remember which. I know in the past you've said that you didn't think the author was referring to initials on the wall, either.
You once also said:

Just keep in mind that the diary does not make any specific references to a letter or letters on Mary's wall.

I think we all do this from time to time - ie assume that the diary author means one thing when there are often other possibilities.

Yes, Mike, and in my post which you responded to, I said pretty much the same thing:

'There is no specific reference to an F or an M, or where the initials might be.'

I could be wrong, but I thought you were in the hoax camp, despite being on the older origin side, so I'm not quite sure what you're arguing as far as these supposed initials go. They weren't on Kelly's wall, they're vaguely hinted at by the author of a diary not written by Maybrick, a man who was very unlikely to have been responsible for any murders in London or Manchester in 1888... So I'm in not sure what we're disagreeing about here.

You tell me, Mike!

I was merely correcting your description of 'a vague couple of lines that could refer to initials if you really wanted them to', because the reference to initials is there in the diary in black and white and not the product of anyone's wishful thinking. If you meant initials on the wall, you didn't actually say so, and I didn't like to presume - which is ironic in a discussion about what the diary author meant, considering they didn't mention the wall either.

"I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it." [Thank you, Basil.]

"Oh, you were talking about the wall. We thought you said the war." [Thank you, Polly.]

Although I don't believe the diary is in Maybrick's handwriting, I don't know that it was a deliberate hoax either, because nobody really knows what was in the mind of the person who authored the original words, or indeed the person who held the pen, if that could have been someone completely different. I always fancied it might have been a literary exercise by a Maybrick and/or JtR enthusiast, who wanted to see if they could combine these two infamous cases and provide a 'solution' to the former using the latter. If they didn't intend it for publication under their own name, but couldn't bring themselves to discard it either, could they not have planted it somewhere in Maybrick's former home and left the chances of its discovery to fate? Plenty of people were tramping through the building before the diary was ever heard of, and the place was full of old books.

I'm not really cut out out for being in a 'camp', Mike. When we were too old for the Brownies, my school friends joined the Girl Guides, but I was having none of it. I follow evidence, not believers, which is why I quit as a Sunday School teacher when I was about fifteen, as soon as I realised I couldn't believe what I was encouraging the kiddies to believe.

But you'd be surprised how many times I've been accused of being secretly in the 'Maybrick Camp', so I was highly amused to see RJ Palmer suggesting only the other day that I am a closet 'Barrett Camper', who can't find anything wrong with his theory [which involves some kind of 'collaborative project' which I'm still not grasping] and apparently I know, but won't admit that Anne and Mike are the most plausible suspects. I can brush off his implication that I am a 'practised deceiver' - as Melvin Harris once described Shirley Harrison - and have been lying through my teeth all this time, because it's such obvious nonsense, like me suggesting that Palmer can find nothing wrong with Ike's theory and knows Maybrick is the most plausible suspect. But I suppose it must be frustrating that those of us who are most familiar with the subject matter and have been posting for years, are also the ones who see the dirty great cracks in the Barrett theory, while those who follow Palmer all the way to Goldie Street, to see where the diary was born according to the script, will often freely admit to having a much more limited knowledge of all the ins and outs and the devil in the detail. There may be the odd exception of course, but Chris Jones doesn't post here and I'm not sure what he makes of the eleven-day Creation theory in any case.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Mike,

I can't agree, either.

In the U.S. such forgeries are referred to as "blind forgeries." (See below). It's still a forgery--and is referred to as such---but the forger doesn't have any exemplars of the subject's handwriting to work with, so he or she just 'wings' it, hoping it won't matter. As always, scammers aren't opposed to risk taking. That should go without saying.

With a fake as modern as we know the diary is (clearly post 1980s), the hoaxers simply assumed (as Feldman's team assumed at one point) that no significant examples of Maybrick's handwriting still existed. A hundred years had passed, after all. Of course, none of the diary's researchers knew the Barretts before April 1992 and thus can have no idea what Mike or Anne might have checked, so the point is moot, anyway. The abstract of Maybrick's will in the Liverpool Central Library was just a short, printed summary of it, and Mike, if he checked, might well have assumed that that was all that had been left by the ravages of time.

Obviously, the 'forger' DID want her or his audience to think the diary was written by Maybrick, and as far as Robert Smith and others are concerned, they succeeded. Didn't one of the handwriting experts--Dr. Audrey Giles or Sue Iremonger--believe that the penman (or penwoman) added extraneous swirls and loops to give the handwriting a mock-Victorian appearance?

If so, then the forger DID make an effort to make the handwriting appear to be 'Maybrick's'---the only way a 'blind forger' could do so, since they had no examples to work with.

I think we can move on from that somewhat odd suggestion.

All the best.

Interesting, but you'd think in that case that at least one of the early experts involved would have twigged that the diary was very possibly an example of a 'blind forgery', by someone connected with its appearance, and would not unreasonably have expected original samples of their handwriting to be supplied for a direct comparison with the original diary. A refusal would have told its own story, and such a comparison would have been in everyone's best interests - apart from the forger's of course if their name was Barrett - because it could have ruled out both Barretts or saved any further embarrassment if one of them was positively identified.

I'm only assuming this wasn't done on a formal basis, because if it was the result was presumably negative or inconclusive.

And so we come back to the watch, which can't reasonably be described as a typical blind forgery, and the easiest type to detect, because the signature is as 'close to the appearance of a genuine signature' by James Maybrick that any bandwagon scally could have hoped to achieve with his old tool [fnarr fnarr] - with or without a genuine example to guide him.

[Pcdunn]

Could you at least point us in the general direction of where it was claimed because it is utterly new to me (for one)? I assume it was not in a James Maybrick thread as I would have seen it.

Please don't call it 'writing' - it isn't words or even a word. Maybrick placed his wife's initials on Mary Kelly's wall using her blood. It was first published in a clear and unequivocal form in Dan Farson's paperback (1973) - it was presumably also in his 1972 hardback but I don't have a copy of it. Here it is:



I think you should start bothering with it as it totally blows the case wide open and points directly towards James Maybrick being Jack the Ripper.

PS For the record, if someone has genuinely claimed that these letters were written on an envelope and were thus transferred to an original copy of MJK1 because it was inside at the time, I would be ever so corked. It's clearly errant nonsense. I'm guessing that someone suggested it might have happened (the wish-it-away strategy) and then there was a pile-on of 'confirmation', you know, like the pile-on of confirmation for the 'enterprising' journalist theory which has never actually been confirmed (and never can be now)?

I have read about the markings on an envelope containing this photo on another Casebook thread, Ike. Not about Maybrick or the Diary, but about the MJK photos in general.

[caz]

Great, I'll just put you on 'ignore' again--this time permanently. It does break up the flow of the thread, but we must all make our little sacrifices.

Cheers.

Oooh, 'again'? I expect the readers will prefer that to more of the same old, same old 'handbags at dawn', and I'm equally happy either way.

I've never seen the point of putting anyone on 'ignore', because if I ever didn't want to read someone's posts, I just wouldn't read them. I don't need outside help for that.

[caz]

Here we get a rare, fleeting glimpse of Barrett's own explanation as to why the handwriting doesn't match. Was this the excuse he dreamed up in case the handwriting was ever challenged?? It appears so. Another reason, perhaps, why he would have been willing to take the risk.

...in case the handwriting was ever challenged??

Was this a serious question?

Ten years after the Hitler Diaries were sold to a West German news magazine, Mike Barrett sells his wife's fake ripper diary to a book publisher, but has some excuse ready in case the handwriting is ever challenged?

This just gets better and better. I won't be ignoring Palmer's posts, that's for sure. I'm having way too much fun.

[Lombro2]

The closest thing we’ve gotten to the Maybrick as Ripper story put to film would be The Limehouse Golem. There’s a diary and a poisoned husband.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Roger,

Yes it was clear that the suggestion had originated with Smith or Barrett or the two combined so perhaps this was a case of planting the seed, or of at least checking to see if their potential explanation for the handwriting had any traction.

Hi Herlock,

yes-- there is no reason to think that Barrett (who was apparently considered a 'mental vegetable' by the early diary researchers) would know that examples of Maybrick's handwriting still existed, so it's a non-argument.

Maybrick had been dead for over 100 years by 1992 when pen went to paper, but once an exemplar was discovered, Barrett put into play the 'drug addict' explanation---not that arsenic is an actual psychotropic; it's just a stimulant, but it was apparently good enough for Robert Smith, Shirley Harrison, Colin Wilson, and others. If they couldn't quite stomach that maybricksplanation, they could always fall back on the will being a forgery instead of the diary!! As Donald Rumbelow once pointed out, the researchers were quite willing to do the hoaxer's work for him...

Further, unless the diary's supporters were camped out in Goldie Street in 1991/2 (which, despite what they like to insinuate is unlikely) they have no idea what inquiries Anne or Mike might have made. It's the usual non-argument smokescreen based on no information, and it smells of desperation.

For about the tenth time, let me quote something that Melvin Harris revealed about Paul Feldman's investigation into the handwriting.

The Maybrick Will -- The Crucial Key to a Shabby Hoax
Melvin Harris

I first saw the 'Maybrick Diary' long after 'the experts and advisors' had had their say. But before seeing it I made three predictions; it would be written in a simple iron-gall ink, which could not be dated; it would be written in an old journal with its front pages torn out; the handwriting would not match the known handwriting of James Maybrick. With time all three forecasts proved correct, but when first shown this document I was assured by Paul Feldman that no significant examples of Maybrick's handwriting existed. There was just one signature on his marriage lines, but nothing else:--"We have checked."

"We have checked." That needs repeating.


Question: If Paul Feldman's team--which included professional researchers such has Keith Skinner and Paul Begg, etc.--couldn't find any 'significant' example of Maybrick's handwriting to compare to the hoax, why couldn't a far less sophisticated man like Mike Barrett have made his own simple inquiries and drawn the same conclusion?

Obviously, despite all the bluff and bluster, he could have.

I've always seen it as a bizarre and desperate argument. Pointing out the handwriting doesn't even match is like saying, "the forgery is so bad it must not be a forgery! No one would risk it."

If criminals and hoaxers weren't willing to take risks, there would be no crime and no hoaxes.

One could point out the nylon threads in the Hitler Diaries and say, "well it must have been a spoof. Any forger worth his salt would have gotten paper from the 1940s."

Such a bizarre argument would hardly have stopped Konrad Kajau from going to prison.

The argument is bonkers. I put utterly no stock in it.

Cheers.

P.S. Oh, and I'm still waiting to hear about Mike "immediately" submitting the diary to forensic tests. I've been following the diary debacle for 20 years and this is the first I've heard of such tests. It will be fascinating to learn about them.