THE WOMEN OF WHITECHAPEL and Jack the Ripper

West (Paul)

ISBN 10: 0394587332 / ISBN 13: 9780394587332

Published by Random House (New York), 1991

About this Item

Hardback. A novel, in which the author brilliantly recasts the Jack the Ripper story, drawing on up-to-date research. He conjures up the poignant existence of Jack's victims, who plied their trade along the squalid lanes of Whitechapel. A novel of haunting beauty and mounting horror. 420pp. lge 8vo. h/back. With embossed stamp of previous owner to fep, o/w Vg+ in Nr. F. dw. A fairly heavy book which may require additional postage if shipped overseas.

Seller Inventory # 10189

Bibliographic Details

• Title: THE WOMEN OF WHITECHAPEL and Jack the Ripper
• Publisher: Random House (New York)
• Publication Date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0394587332
• ISBN 13: 9780394587332
• Binding: Hardcover / Hardback
• Edition: First edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Jack the Ripper and Assoc.

About this title

Synopsis

When Annie, a simple shop girl, becomes pregnant with the child of Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward, the royal family arranges to seize the child and to make sure that Annie and four of her friends disappear--with the help of Jack the Ripper

Reviews

Inspired by a recent journalistic view that the infamous Jack the Ripper actually was a trio--Sir William Gull of Guy's Hospital, impressionist painter Walter Sickert, and a coachman called Netley--West delineates the roiling lives of the women before their doom. Polly, Dark Annie, Long Liz, Catherine and Marie are sister-strumpets to Annie Crook, a voluptuous Scottish lass, a painter's model who sold bonbons before bearing a child to "Eddy," the slumming bisexual Duke of Clarence. To hush up the affair, the royals permit Annie to be kidnapped, fed drugged grapes, lobotomized and institutionalized by Dr. Gull, "the skull-puncturer, the vivisectionist," who has a fierce taste for experimenting medically on healthy females. Reduced to a bemused vegetable, Annie finally is released to end her days in the workhouse. But her women friends, who write letters to the queen, are scooped into an unmarked coach once used by the Duke of Clarence (hence a different theory that he was "the Ripper"), knifed and dumped in the gutter. West ( Ratman of Paris ; Lord Byron's Doctor ) characteristically tricks out actual persons/events in fictional guise. A lavish verbal wizard, his current re-creation seethes with juicy Falstaffian fantasies of toping and tupping.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.