From Hell: the Compleat Scripts Book One

Alan Moore

ISBN 10: 1880325071 / ISBN 13: 9781880325070

Published by Borderlands Pr, 1995

About this Item

Wraps are firm, text block clean, no highlights/underlining or markings. Some rubbing/curling to wraps. Well packaged and promptly shipped from California. Partnered with Friends of the Library since 2010.

Seller Inventory # BAY_05_SH_050996

Bibliographic Details

• Title: From Hell: the Compleat Scripts Book One
• Publisher: Borderlands Pr
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1880325071
• ISBN 13: 9781880325070
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Legendary comics writer Alan Moore and artist Eddie Campbell have created a gripping, hallucinatory piece of crime fiction about Jack the Ripper. Detailing the events that led up to the Whitechapel murders and the cover-up that followed, From Hell has become a modern masterpiece of crime noir and historical fiction.

Review

The mad, shaggy genius of the comics world dips deeply into the well of history and pulls up a cup filled with blood in From Hell. Alan Moore did a couple of Ph.D.'s worth of research into the Whitechapel murders for this copiously annotated collection of the independently published series. The web of facts, opinion, hearsay, and imaginative invention draws the reader in from the first page. Eddie Campbell's scratchy ink drawings evoke a dark and dirty Victorian London and help to humanize characters that have been caricatured into obscurity for decades. Moore, having decided that the evidence best fits the theory of a Masonic conspiracy to cover up a scandal involving Victoria's grandson, goes to work telling the story with relish from the point of view of the victims, the chief inspector, and the killer--the Queen's physician. His characterization is just as vibrant as Campbell's; even the minor characters feel fully real. Looking more deeply than most, the author finds in the "great work" of the Ripper a ritual magic working intended to give birth to the 20th century in all its horrid glory. Maps, characters, and settings are all as accurate as possible, and while the reader might not ultimately agree with Moore and Campbell's thesis, From Hell is still a great work of literature. --Rob Lightner