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Sugden, Philip. The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1994. [library]
This is the best book on Jack the Ripper I have read thus far. Sugden can lay out a clear, coherent narrative of what we know about each crime, he is adamant about relying on primary sources, and when he doesn't know something, he says so flat out. He treats everything we "know" about the identity of Jack the Ripper with rigorous skepticism (including, thank goodness, the claims of Sir Robert Anderson that seem to have hypnotized so many Ripper historians), and the only time I caught him yearning, like a dog on a leash, after a crazy-ass theory was at the very end of the book.
( cut for Ripperology )
There are, of course, criticisms I can make.( cut for more Ripperology )
But the only one I can think of that actually affects whether or not this is a good gateway for people interested in Jack the Ripper is that, by the nature of the historiography of Jack the Ripper, Sugden spends a lot of time demonstrating that earlier historians are wrong. He has to, because so many of their claims have become things "everybody knows" about Jack the Ripper. But if you don't know the earlier theories, you may be baffled as to why the various subjects even come up. All historiography is a conversation, but the historiography of the Ripper is a party in an over-crowded room, where somebody starting shouting half an hour ago, and now everybody's talking too loudly. It can be hard to hear anything over the din.
This is the best book on Jack the Ripper I have read thus far. Sugden can lay out a clear, coherent narrative of what we know about each crime, he is adamant about relying on primary sources, and when he doesn't know something, he says so flat out. He treats everything we "know" about the identity of Jack the Ripper with rigorous skepticism (including, thank goodness, the claims of Sir Robert Anderson that seem to have hypnotized so many Ripper historians), and the only time I caught him yearning, like a dog on a leash, after a crazy-ass theory was at the very end of the book.
( cut for Ripperology )There are, of course, criticisms I can make.
( cut for more Ripperology )But the only one I can think of that actually affects whether or not this is a good gateway for people interested in Jack the Ripper is that, by the nature of the historiography of Jack the Ripper, Sugden spends a lot of time demonstrating that earlier historians are wrong. He has to, because so many of their claims have become things "everybody knows" about Jack the Ripper. But if you don't know the earlier theories, you may be baffled as to why the various subjects even come up. All historiography is a conversation, but the historiography of the Ripper is a party in an over-crowded room, where somebody starting shouting half an hour ago, and now everybody's talking too loudly. It can be hard to hear anything over the din.
