Jack the Ripper: The Facts

by Paul Begg

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0760771219
• ISBN13: 9780760771211
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Length: 550 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

In the top 10 of all 'Ripper' books thus far

This current work is also very well written and researched and I include it in the best ten books about Jack the Ripper that I have read thus far. Novice readers (ie: those who have not read many 'Ripper' histories) will enjoy this work as something they can 'get their teeth into' and they can be confident that the author has a good enough grasp of the subject to lead them too far from the currently accepted facts. A number of critics have compared this book to Phillip Sugden's excellent work The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. Most tend to adjudge that work a little superior to this current one and I would have to agree. If I were forced to choose having one or the other in my collection, or to recommending one over the other, I suppose I would have to pick Sugden. Thankfully, I do not have to choose between the two and I can easily recommend that the interested reader acquire both works. Begg rounds out his very excellent review of the killings with facts and supplementary information that does not appear in other publications, thus the book complements and adds to the best of the current related literature. I do have a few criticisms of Begg's work and I initially intended to detail them here. On reflection, however, it strikes me that those criticisms would only be interesting or meaningful to those who have already read a fair number of Ripper histories. Such readers will already have formed their own conclusions concerning the issues where I find Begg unconvincing and it wouldn't be helpful to prospective buyers to set them forth here. Are you interested in a good, detailed history of the Whitechapel murders that does not indulge in unfounded speculation? You can do far, far worse than this enjoyable work.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

Paul Begg is a noted Ripper historian. In this updated and re-organized book on the crimes of the figure known as Jack the Ripper, Begg presents an astounding amount of facts, reports, and evidence about the Whitechapel murders of 1888. Included are almost overly thorough looks at the murder victims and the extra possible victims, histories on notable law officers, feasible suspects, after effects, and life in general from this time. There is just so much information here it's almost an overload. There are a few places that seemed to go way off on side tangents but overall, they did pay credence to the presentation of the whole series of events and people involved. Truly a top-notch text on the Autumn of Terror. He seems to favor the 'Kosminski' suspect in the end and stays open minded on Maybrick, but Begg never gives his pick because as a historian he must remain open to all theories until such theories & suspects can be definitively dismissed. In all the Ripper books I've read, this is probably number two, right behind Philip Sugden's The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. These two books will give you all the information you could want on Jack the Ripper but of course there are other equally high valued for information. Supplements to these books would be Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates, Jack the Ripper: Letters from Hell, and The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper (for the alternate who-dunnit theories).

I thought it would be impossible

After reading Philip Sugden's Complete History of Jack The Ripper, over ten years ago, I thought no one would be able to write a book that would compare to this. Paul Begg's first edition came out first (which I didn't read the first edition). However, he did a total update on the book, and because of all the praise it received I had to read it. He is an excellent writer, and even though I've read many books on the Ripper, he has a way of telling this story with total freshness. I also must give him credit for being totally unbiased in who may or may not have killed these 4,5,6,7,8, or 9 women. Is it a better book than Philip Sugden's? For me, it's too close to call. I think both have done a great job. Be sure to get the revised edition of this one.