The Ripper File

First Edition. This is from the dustwrapper: " What was it like to walk the streets of Whitechapel in 1888 and wonder whether round the next comer, under the next arch, you might meet the terrifying man known as Jack the Ripper or find the ghastly aftermath of one of his crimes? As 1888 wore on, the fears, the rumours,the myths about the killer grew and grew: soon not just London but the whole of Britain was caught up by the case, and then the story spread further still until the echo of jack's crimes reverberated round the world. Using archive material, most of it unpublished since it first appeared at the time of the killings, Melvin Harris reconstructs the horrors of those days with rare immediacy, telling the story of the murders and the suspects as they came to light. He shows how the police,already demoralised by scandal in their ranks, conducted their investigations in confused disarray, compounding their mistakes with faulty reasoning - reasoning that day by day hampered the hunt for the real killer and heightened the public's fears. There seemed no limit to Jack's ability to fool the forces ranged against him and to get away with crime after crime. In the end the clashes between the Police Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, and the Home Secretary, Charles Matthews, came to a head and Warren lost his job, but Warren's successor Monro achieved no better result. The press, headed by powerful editors like W T Stead and T. P O'Connor, constantly fuelled speculation on the murderer's identity and stirred up public blame for official conduct. Melvin Harris, unrivalled today at detecting contradictory theories and misleading'evidence', explodes popular myths about the supposed identity of Jack the Ripper and, using today's techniques of investigation, works out his own answer to the case, offering conclusive evidence that should finally stamp the Ripper file 'solved'." Red boards with gold lettering in illustrated dustwrapper. Well illustrated. 174 pages, 7.75 X 10 inches. Very good book in a very good dustwrapper with some creases.…