Product Description

Using contemporary documents, police files, Home Office papers and newspaper reports, 'Jack the Ripper: The Facts' recreates the notorious crimes and police investigation of 1888 to provide the best available overview of the 'Great Victorian Mystery', the greatest unsolved, true crime story of all time. Written by one of the world's foremost authorities on the case, this is a completely rewritten and fully updated edition of Begg's classic title Jack the Ripper. It follows the crimes chronologically and records the most significant events, witness testimonies and aspects of the police investigation. As well as objectively examining the primary police suspects, Begg provides a fascinating and authoritative insight into related political issues and background events.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #306371 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

About the Author
Paul Begg is acknowledged worldwide as one of the leading authorities on the Jack the Ripper mystery. He is co-author of the 'Ripper Bible', 'The Jack the Ripper A to Z', and has written 'Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History'. He lives in Kent.

Customer Reviews

an encyclopaedia of facts
Paul Begg is one of the foremost authorities on Jack the Ripper and unsurprisingly this book is well researched and well written. It does what it says on the cover and contains the facts surrounding the killings of the multiple murderer known as Jack the Ripper.

Although Paul Begg sets the book out in a format that can be read by any eager Ripperologist I have found that this text is also useful to dip in and out of to check a fact or two.

Mr Begg manages something do which more Ripperologists can't seem to avoid - he manages to steer clear of speculative theory and sticks to the known, researchable, facts of the murders and the investigation which surrounded them.

The author includes victims from Fairy Fay onwards, rather than doing what many do and wiping this potential victims from the Jack the Ripper case file with the stroke of a pen - those of us who work in the field, and well read amateurs, know that multiple murders start out slowly and build up on what they do, they very rarely start with disembowelment.

Also included are a number of main suspects, as well as some of the less likely suspects, such as Tumblety and Sickert (two of the lesser suspects that I have a problem with).

Tumblety was mentioned in inter-departmental letters and memorandum found in a second-hand bookshop; these letters were reported to have been written by DCI John George Littlechild. Littlechild was head of the anti-terrorism branch and never had any dealings with the Ripper case. Tumblety was a know IRA supporter and was suspected of smuggling money and weapons for them, Littlechild had suspected that Tumblety was behind the bombing of his office but could not prove it and it was shortly after that Littlechild began to mention Tumblety as a possible Ripper suspect.

Sickert's nomination for Ripper was more recently supported by fiction author Patricia Cornwell who spent tens of millions of dollars buying up painting by Sickert, authenticated furniture, and authenticated clothing and destroying most of the artefacts in order to discover what she said was proof that he was the Ripper. If you want to see what blinkered research can produce then her book is still available in libraries, note that she managed to ignore or alter facts that did not fit her theory - that is acceptable in fiction but never when dealing with factual material and events.

I recommend this book for anyone with an interest in true crime and the "Jack the Ripper" murders.

Definitely worth it for any student of the case!
Because this book is for some reason unaviable in Canada, I ordered it from amazon.co.uk and was not in the least disappointed. The book contains much less detail on the social conditions than his "Definitive History" in favour of a complete history of the case. While in some ways, this book contains less detail on certain aspects than Sugden does, it still, in my opinion, deserves to be ranked with it as the best comprehensive account of the case because it deals with much of the more recent research on the case and still provides a wealth detail, not all of which is in Sugden. The book provides an overview of the case, and covers the expected ground, with chapters on each of the canonical victims (including Tabram), Leather Apron, the letters (with significant detail on the Dear Boss and Lusk letters), the police, the reactions/climate in Whitechapel and London, and the Macnaghten Memorandum. All the chapters contain references to primary sources, mostly quotes from newspapers and police reports.
The suspect oriented chapters on the case include Druitt, Ostrog, Kosminski and Tumbelty. There is also a small section in the Kosminski chapter on Fido's "David Cohen" theory, which in my opinion, despite the dificulties, is the best one out there (I think the confusion of suspects and Anderson's veracity cannot be so easily dismissed). A final chapter briefly discusses, and refutes, various other suspect theories, including the royal theory, Sickert and Maybrick. There are also a few pages of Chapman/Klosowski in chapter 8. There are also the standard victim pictures in the book and pictures of the murder sites. There are also pictures of many of the notable police officers involved in the case as well as two photos of the Swanson marginalia.
Begg's account is, in many respects, as conservative as Sugden's, correctly I think. For example, they both express agnosticism about authenticity of the Lusk kidney, and deem Packer completely unreliable.
There are also differences between Begg's account and Sugden's, giving the book a certain enjoyable idiosyncratic flavour. Sugden and Begg both add Tabram as a probable sixth canonical victim (in my opinion quite rightly), and plausibly discount Smith, Coles and Mackenzie. However, while Sugden includes Millwood and excludes Wilson, Begg discounts Millwood and makes a case Wilson. One final, and perhaps the biggest, difference between the two is that Sugden argued that George Chapman/Klosowski is the only known suspect who could have been, and perhaps was, the killer, Begg all but discounts Chapman seems to tacitly favour Kosminski, although he rightly acknowledges a lack any definitive evidence. While Ripperologists will probably have to die not knowing anything for certain, one cannot help but obssessively keep working at it and Begg's work is basically the best we can do.

Excellent Reference Work For All Would-Be Ripperologists
This is a densely researched, clearly written account of the background history to the Ripper murders, what is known of the events leading up to the murders and the theories that sprung up at the time and subsequently as to who committed them.

Beggs's research is comprehensive and looks into alleged early victims of the Ripper (including Faerie Fae) as well as the political forces at work in the police force as they struggled to find a culprit. Adopting a fairly chronological approach to the murders (albeit one that sometimes jumps back to earlier events), he scrupulously documents the records of the times, including identifying where evidence available to the original detectives has gone missing in subsequent years. His account of the lives of the Ripper's victims is at times moving and all appear as pitiful women, fighting to cope with their lives of poverty. The reproductions of photographs of some of the key players at the time really helps the reader to picture the people and the events surrounding these crimes and none are more chilling than the in situ post-mortem photographs taken of some of the victims, which shows the true savagery of the murders.

Beggs devotes several chapters to looking at those Ripper suspects investigated at the time, including the identity of the notorious `Leather Apron' who terrorised the East End's prostitutes and was fingered as a candidate for the Ripper, Patricia Cornwall's theory on Walter Sickert, Prince Albert Victor and numerous others. What's interesting is that he spends almost as much time establishing where those theories match up with the known facts to pointing out obvious discrepancies and the result is an even-handed approach that allows the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Particularly invaluable is the bibliography and references that Beggs adds at the end. Amounting to over 100 pages in total, it is an invaluable research for those who want to go on and read more on the subject of `Ripperology'.