Jack the Ripper & the London Press - Hardcover

Curtis, Perry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300088728 ISBN 13: 9780300088724

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Press coverage of the 1888 mutilation murders attributed to Jack the Ripper was of necessity filled with gaps and silences, for the killer remained unknown and Victorian journalists had little experience reporting serial murders and sex crimes. This engrossing book examines how fifteen London newspapers - dailies and weeklies, highbrow and lowbrow - presented the Ripper news, in the process revealing much about the social, political, and sexual anxieties of late Victorian Britain and the role of journalists in reinforcing social norms. L. Perry Curtis surveys the mass newspaper culture of the era, delving into the nature of sensationalism and the conventions of domestic murder news. Analyzing the fifteen newspapers - several of which emanated from the East End, where the murders took place - he shows how journalists played on the fears of readers about law and order by dwelling on lethal violence rather than sex, offering gruesome details about knife injuries but often withholding some of the more intimate details of the pelvic mutilations. He also considers how the Ripper news affected public perceptions of social conditions in Whitechapel. 'It is a major contribution to cultural history', Christopher Frayling, Rector of the Royal College of Art, London 'An excellent book that offers a new angle on an always fascinating subject', John Davis, Queen's College, Oxford L. Perry Curtis, Jr., is professor of history and modern culture and media at Brown University, Rhode Island.

About this title

Review

"...gets behind the headlines and steel engravings to the ways in which the story was originally constructed..." -- Sir Christopher Frayling, Royal College of Art

"An excellent book that offers a new angle on an always fascinating subject." -- John Davis, Queen's College, Oxford

'His [L. Perry Curtis Jnr's] impressive book makes a genuine contribution to 19th-century history' -- Jad Adams, The Guardian, 9 February 2002

'[a] fascinating study' -- David McAllister, Times Literary Supplement, 8 March 2002

'scrupulous and scholarly' -- Jane Jakeman, The Independent, 2 February 2002

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300088728
• ISBN 13: 9780300088724
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 356