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John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 566
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 7:23 pm: |       |
Ah Simon,
You know not what awaits you when a certain someone returns.
Because, you see, the diarist writes that Michael was a success at writing verse -- which is completely different than being successful at writing verse.
Or wait, maybe it's the other way around.
In any case, they're very different somehow, so James saying that his brother was a successful verse writer or a success at writing verse or successful at writing verse or whatever is actually OK since even though he was not known as a verse writer, he could still have been a success as a verse writer or a successful verse writer or something, despite the fact that there's not a single piece of history or data or testimony about this very public man that suggests he was.
What was it Jim Croce once sang?
"If dreams could make wishes come true..."
Anyway, you'll see the "success at /successful at" nonsense here soon enough.
He might not have been a success at writing verse but he might nonetheless have been successful at writing verse.
Get it?
Don't worry, if you're not crazy yet, you will be soon.
To quote a famous British poet:
I can feel it comin' in the air tonight...
Oh, Lord...
--John (who can't wait to read this thread tomorrow)
PS: Of course, this is just another thing the forger gets wrong (and there is a noteworthy precedent for the mistake in a misleading passage in a 1970s book on the Maybricks that includes other exact phrases from the diary in it). What's that word again? Oh yeah. Amazing! |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 726
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 5:01 am: | |
John,
That would be the 1977 book I can't find in the whole of Leicester Libraries would it?
Jennifer
ps. That great British poet Phil Collins hey!
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 568
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 8:07 am: | |
Hi Jen,
Yup. Probably the very same one. 
By the way, congrats on sourcing the unidentified poet. Now if the diarist had just given us five words of Collins instead of Crashaw, we might have understood how Mike knew them.
And, of course, we'd be being told that it was just an amazing coincidence that Maybrick happened to think of the same five words in the same order as a song he could not possibly have ever heard -- just like he thought of the line about the matchbox using the very same words in the very same odd order as a police document he could not possibly have ever seen and he misnamed a pub using the very same words with the same odd spelling and the same capitalization as a real pub he could not possibly have ever visited.
My lord, this is an amazing book, full of the most fantastic coincidences in history.
Maybe the real James wasn't Jack the Ripper.
Maybe he was the reincarnation of Nostradamus.
(Or maybe whoever wrote the book also saw the police list and knew about the pub - nah, that's too obvious and simple, isn't it?)
Hey, doesn't our poet have another song called Against All Odds?
Indeed.
--John |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 733
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 12:45 pm: | |
John,
indeed he does.
So from what i know about Crawshaw the diary must have been written after 1920?
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1185
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 1:55 pm: | |
Hi Chris P,
Why does "tin match box empty" point to Barrett's involvement?
Hi Chris G,
You wrote:
‘The Diarist believes that James Maybrick's brother wrote rhymes.’
Yes, and all the diarist says on the subject is:
‘…if Michael can succeed in rhyming verse then I can do better, a great deal better he shall not outdo me.’
If you think he means ‘succeed in’, as in ‘become famous for’ (as opposed to simply being able to rhyme verse/tie his shoelaces/boil an egg etc), is he then suggesting that James believes he will become more famous, ‘a great deal’ more famous, than Michael, for rhyming verse, if he can outdo him - in this diary?
Is this seriously how you would interpret it? Do you not see any problem with an assumption that the diarist is using success to mean fame in this context?
And just in case anyone didn’t already appreciate, the diarist does know perfectly well that Michael composes music:
‘Michael is well, he writes a merry tune.’
I’ll tell you another thing. The diarist is not the only one who believes Michael Maybrick wrote rhymes. I should imagine it’s a near certainty that he did. In fact, I don’t imagine there have been many people – even the barely literate – who have never done so.
Love,
Caz
X
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 438
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 2:53 pm: | |
Caz
Hi Chris P,
Why does "tin match box empty" point to Barrett's involvement?
Please read my message again. Note the use of the word "respectively".
Chris Phillips
|
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 836
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 3:04 pm: | |
Hi, Caz
You wrote: "I’ll tell you another thing. The diarist is not the only one who believes Michael Maybrick wrote rhymes. I should imagine it’s a near certainty that he did. In fact, I don’t imagine there have been many people – even the barely literate – who have never done so."
Well, as we have been saying, there is no evidence that has been produced to show that Michael Maybrick wrote rhymes, though of course he might have written one or two or more, who knows? It was a Victorian societal fashion to versify in albums and so forth.
Yet, the Diarist, to my mind, implies more than that just occasional versifying. The Diarist seems to imply that Michael was proficient at and known for writing rhymes, to the extent that James had to outdo him at it.
But, Caz, this is all very artificial, just as the wording you quoted, "Michael is well, he writes a merry tune" is a sloppy way to characterize your own brother, isn't? Rather this strikes me as something that someone would write who doesn't know very much about the two brothers. It doesn't sound authentic. One brother is a cotton merchant and the other is a professional musician. And yet the one is het up about outdoing the other one at writing silly little rhymes? Please!
And yes we know all about how being an addled arsenic addict/murderer could have made him do things other people wouldn't.
I would put it to you, Caz, that this rhyming business and 1) the Abberline versus James Maybrick rivalry and 2) James versus Michael Maybrick rivalry described in the Diary are in there most probably because of 1) the 1988 film with Michael Caine that played up the role of Abberline, and that is not quite historical, in that the Chief Inspector's role was not that prominent at the time of the murders as depicted in the press, and 2) the common misconception that Jack the Ripper wrote letters and Jack wrote rhymes. All of which speaks more of someone concocting the thing post-1988 than in 1888/1889.
Best regards
Chris
(Message edited by chrisg on August 11, 2004)
(Message edited by chrisg on August 11, 2004)
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 576
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 5:08 pm: | |
Interesting thoughts, Chris.
Thanks.
You see Simon!? You can't say I didn't warn you. 
After all the "success at vs. being able to" nonsense (remember what word the diary actually uses, friends), Caroline, once again tries desperately to dance around the words on the page, saying, regarding Michael writing verse:
"I should imagine it’s a near certainty that he did."
And the key word here is......
Come on, everyone....
All together now....
Yes!
That's right!
"IMAGINE!"
Some people read the words for what they say and then check them against the record, against the data, against the history and against modern sources.
And some people imagine.
I can hear Figment's music now.
But, to return from the Land of Imagination for a moment, the diarist takes on the personal challenge of besting his brother.
How?
By writing rhymes.
Problem is, that was not the source of his borther's success. You'd think the real James Maybrick would know this, but no....
Hey, here's some imagination for you -- just for fun:
Obviously, this is just another of the many things the forgers got wrong. It looked good. Michael was famous after all for writing songs, and perhaps that's all they knew, or perhaps they read Ryan and were misled, and the conceit gave them an excuse for writing rhymes instead of details which could be checked. But in the end it proved just to be another ahistorical detail, another bit in the diary that demonstrated that the real James Maybrick didn't write it.
The funny thing about this one is, getting this one screwed up could have been the mistake of an old forger or a modern forger, so I'm not sure why Caz is clinging to this one (since she already knows the book is a fake and is only interested now in protecting the old forgery dream). Perhaps it's just because she's offered the ludicrous "having success at something isn't being successful at something" nonsense so often that she feels compelled to defend this distinction without a difference, or perhaps she feels her own reputation is somehow at stake.
In any case, it's all still another desperate attempt to explain away an obvious ahistorical detail in the book.
And the fact that anyone feels the need to explain these away rather than face what is actually written on these pages is just an intellectual shame.
Ah well, that's Diary World for you.
I'm glad now that Figment is here to guide us through it.
Dream on,
--John
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1193
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 11:10 am: | |
Hi All,
I wonder if John believes Florence Aunspaugh and her daddy 'screwed up' too, when it came to understanding the real Michael Maybrick and where he fancied his talents lay.
According to Florence, her father said that Michael's 'success' had endowed him with the 'superiority complex', and he 'thought he had forgotten more than anybody else ever did know...'
Florence went on to write that Michael 'thought he should be classed with Shakespeare, Byron, Milton and Tennyson'.
Not the famous poets, you understand, but the slightly less celebrated four-piece beat combo who composed all their own tunes - in a class of their own these guys were: George Shakespeare, Alfie Byron, Willy Milton and John Boy Tennyson. 
Love,
Caz
X
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 618
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 11:30 am: | |
And now we're talking about Florence Aunspaugh as a way to get around this fake diary's convenient obsession with Michael writing verse?
Of course, nothing in the first citation has anything to do with the issue of the diary getting the question of Michael's success right or wrong. And the second one, as far as I can tell, has to do with what "Michael thought" about himself and his stature in history. Well, if it's Michael's stature in history we are talking about, there's no question at all where it would come from, is there? His musical compositions, right?
Did he write the words for those?
No. Of course not.
That's just inconvenient history, I realize. But it's the history all the same.
What we are given instead are the words of someone telling us that someone else apparently thought of himself as "classed with," that is, as famous and important as, the most famous writers in English history.
That's nice. Still, I thought it was James who was supposed to have written the diary.
But here, of course, under some signatures, actual history will never be allowed precedence over creative and elliptical reading, wishing, and a bit of imagination, but the history will be there, just the same.
At least we've stopped seeing the "being a success at something is different than being successful at it" stuff. That one made my head spin.
The gasps of desperation seem to be getting slighter. This, I think, is a good thing,
--John
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 619
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 12:14 pm: | |
Oh, and here's one more thought.
I see that we are now speculating freely about where the forgers might have gotten the idea of making Michael a versifier and thereby allowing their James to write and edit pages of doggerel rather than record the actual details of his crimes (and it's a good thing they did, since even within the limited and fragmented details they do have him write, they still get things wrong -- in precisely the same way a number of modern sources get them wrong, amazingly enough).
Cool. I can speculate as well as anyone.
So here's a bit of imagination from me about where our forgers got the idea to make Michael an author. In Bernard Ryan's book on the Maybrick case, the same book that has all the details about James's pains and his medicines and his doctor visits and his symptoms and his beliefs about acquiring strength and the same book that has the details about the Grand National running and the same book that has the Smith stuff and has James "frequenting his club" and a number of other phrases that also appear in the diary, and the same book that is so delightfully (and familiarly) melodramatic about his jealousy -- in that same book, in the very first chapter, on page 20, there is the following misleading sentence about Michael Maybrick:
"He was the policy-maker on family affairs, probably because of his immense financial and public success, under the name of Stephen Adams, as the composer and author of many popular songs."
"...and author..."
Imagine, just for fun, if the forgers read this and doing no further research, grabbed hold of the idea of Michael writing lyrics and used it as a way and a reason to get their James to fill page after page jotting down and editing his "funny little rhymes."
Then, later, it turned out that Michael didn't actually write the words to any of those "popular songs."
D'oh!
Of course, we must remember that these are the same forgers who didn't bother to check and see what Maybrick's handwriting looked like and who got the details of the crimes wrong in precisely the same way as modern books and who put their man in a pub that didn't exist then but does now and all the rest, so why should we be surprised that they believed what they read in the book?
No one is suggesting here that the real James wrote this diary, right?
So, since random speculation based solely on vague quotations and imagination seem to be all the rage around here, I thought I'd offer some of my own.
The Ryan book misleadingly suggests Michael was a famous author of popular song lyrics.
The diary has James being jealous of his brother's success at writing rhymes.
I'm sure this too is just a coincidence.
Still, it's fun to pretend,
--John
PS: The date on the Ryan book? Guess.  1977. Everyone should read it once just after reading the diary. It is, to use a popular expression, an "amazing" experience.
|
Simon Owen
Detective Sergeant
Username: Simonowen
Post Number: 63
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 12:32 pm: | |
How could Michael Maybrick be classed as a famous poet when he didn't even have any poetry published ? When he didn't even write the lyrics to the songs that made him famous ?
Something is not right here ! |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 758
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 2:53 pm: | |
Hi,
listen I think the point is this -
Michael Maybrick does not have to be a successful poet by our standards, he just has to have thought himself a success. Don't we all want to be better than our siblings at things? Does it matter how good they are or rather how good they think they are, it is the idea of being worse at something than our siblings that leads us to bad decisions about things, that may lead us to say that we want to be more successful at verse writing than they are.
No Michael Maybrick was a composer of music not a lyric writer, yes this is a mistake made in a 1977 book - does this mean the diary is wrong???
I think i have rambled on for long enough and I no longer have any idea about what i am saying!
Just a few things off the top of my head there!
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 622
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 7:40 pm: | |
Remember, Jennifer,
It's supposed to be James writing the book.
But of course, the real James would know what his brother was such a success at. The real James would know what he did to Mary Kelly's breasts when he killed her. The real James would know the rest of the details of his own crimes. The real James would know whether he wrote the Dear Boss letter. The real James would NOT know what the police list of Eddowes' possessions said at the time or what the list said when it was published in books a hundred years later. The real James would NOT know that there was a pub that would turn up a hundred years later in the very same city called exactly "The Poste House." The real James would NOT know that line from that obscure and unanthologized Crashaw poem, which would turn up a hundred years later conveniently excerpted in the Sphere Guide. The real James would NOT know what mistakes modern books made about both the murders and his brother and be able to reproduce them in his own diary. The real James would also, of course, write the diary in his own handwriting.
The person who wrote this diary did not write it in the real James Maybrick's handwriting, nor did they get the details of the murders right, nor did they get the source of Michael's success right, BUT they DID get the name of the pub in Liverpool right (James could not have) and they DID get the line from the police list right (James could not have). Of course, then again, they did NOT get the handwriting right. Nor did they manage to come up with any verifiable provenance.
This should all tell you something, Jennifer.
Yes, that's right. The real James could not have written this book. Someone else must have.
And so things remain exactly where they have always been in Diary World. We are still reading and discussing a forgery. And there is still nothing new and still nothing real in any of it.
Remember the dates -- always check the dates -- of the Ryan, of the Fido, of the Miniseries, of the availability of the police list, of the diary's first appearance, of the watch's first appearance.
Remember the dates, my friends.
--John |
A Smith
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 8:18 am: | |
Chris P
Referring to one of your earlier posts, surely you are not using probability and statistics as a means of proving the diary a fake. If you are actually saying that the cumulative effect of all of "Caz's little ducks" makes it probable that the diary is a fake then fair enough.
John is wrong (Shock, Horror!) when he says that everyone knows the diary to be a fake. Most people believe the diary to be a fake certainly but there is a big difference between these two positions.
Your reference to on line casinos makes me assume that you are familiar with gambling, and therefore that an event being probable does not make it certain, otherwise there would be no bookmakers. Each time the roulette wheel spins it is probable that the ball will land somewhere other than zero, but what do you know it does happen.
It was improbable that Todd Hamilton would win the British Open Golf, that Greece would win the European Football Championships, that some individual would be struck by lightning or a bus.
It is improbable that anyone will pick six numbers at random which correspond with 6 balls taken equally at random from a spinning drum and guess what it happens here in the UK nearly every week.
There is a difference between probability and certainty surely
Alan |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 634
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 9:32 am: | |
Alan,
We're not talking about golf or lightning here. If you want to assert that the chances of the diary being real are the same as the chances of Todd winning the Open or lightning hitting you, then show me the numbers.
But that's silly, of course.
Let's stick to the issue.
Still, no real evidence exists anywhere on the planet in favor of the diary being anything other than a fake.
That's a bit more than just probability.
At a certain point, Alan, the laws of inductive logic allow for a valid conclusion.
Every piece of textual and material evidence we have points only in one direction.
The diary was not written by the real James Maybrick.
It's not in his handwriting.
It contains a number of ahistorical errors.
It contains a line from a police document the real James could not possibly have seen.
It has James drinking in a place he could not possibly have been.
It has no verifiable provenance whatsoever.
It even makes simple mistakes about the murders and the narrator's own family.
It is obviously a forgery.
Given the evidence, that is a perfectly valid inductive conclusion.
That's probably why it is the conclusion made by so many qualified experts, like Evans and Skinner and Fido and Begg and Rumbelow and Sugden, etc..
The only real shame is that it is still being pimped as possibly authentic both on these boards and in print.
That's just plain embarrassing.
Or, at least to any serious scholar, it should be.
--John
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 778
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 11:55 am: | |
Hi Alan,
its not that improbable to be struck by lightening i think the figure is one in 250 000, your chance of being murdered 1 in 80 000 and your chances of winning the UK lotto 1 in 13 million.
Just something I found interesting!
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Kelly Robinson
Detective Sergeant
Username: Kelly
Post Number: 69
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 12:21 pm: | |
Chances of the diary being genuine vs. chance of being struck by lightning? What's being missed is this: lightning is real! How about the chances of the diary being genuine as compared to something similar? Like being struck by a magical chicken bone dropped by a flying monkey?
-K {getting into this imagination thing;thanks John}
"The past isn't over. It isn't even past."
William Faulkner |
Simon Owen
Detective Sergeant
Username: Simonowen
Post Number: 76
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 1:21 pm: | |
Theres also something like a 1 in 8 billion chance that DNA evidence could be incorrect in any given case , its all a question of probability in every instance.
Each thread of circumstantial evidence adds up , increasing the probability that our Diarist was not James Maybrick. And there are so many threads , I think I can see a spider's web !
The strongest probability is that the Diary is a fake , given that the case for its authenticity rests on coincidences and possibilities rather than hard facts. |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 638
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 3:39 pm: | |
There is no need to compute probabilities once a valid inductive conclusion can be reached.
Logic lesson for the day.
Thanks for playing everyone -- and remember, we are talking about an obvious forgery here and about those who would say anything, offer any excuse no matter how desperate, just to keep the thing alive.
So probability arguments are not going to sway them.
This is not about the truth, or even the likelihood of the obvious being true.
This is about desire.
And no probability argument (and no logic, and no common sense, I'm afraid) will overcome some people's personal desire.
All the best,
--John |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1200
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 21, 2004 - 4:24 am: | |
Hi All,
Let's look at the context, instead of trying to force the 'succeed' word into isolation so that it can be claimed as a 'famous' blunder:
‘It shall come, if Michael can succeed in rhyming verse then I can do better, a great deal better he shall not outdo me. Think you fool, think. I curse Michael for being so clever, I shall outdo him, I will see to that. A funny little rhyme shall come forth.’
John would have us all interpret this as:
‘It shall come, if Michael can be famous for rhyming verse then I can be more famous for doing so, a great deal more famous he shall not outdo me in the being famous for rhyming verse department. Think you fool, think. I curse Michael for being so famous for his funny little rhymes, I shall be more famous than him, I will see to that. A funny little rhyme shall come forth – er, in this diary, which will make me even more famous than Michael.’
I offer an alternative, simpler interpretation for consideration, nothing more:
‘It shall come, if my brother can manage to rhyme verse then I can do better, a great deal better he shall not outdo me. Think you fool, think. I curse Michael for being so clever, I shall outdo him, I will see to that. A funny little rhyme shall come forth.’
I leave the readers to decide whether either of these interpretations hits the spot.
Love,
Caz
X
PS I wonder what Mrs Hammersmith would think? (Strained attempt to get back on topic ) |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 781
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 21, 2004 - 6:03 am: | |
Caz,
If Mrs Hammersmith existed she would soon tell you how successful (or not ) Michael Maybrick was at writing verse.
Michael Maybrick was probably quite able to write verse. James Maybrick probably could write verse.
Michael Maybrick is famous for composing songs. He is not famous for verse writing.
James Maybrick is famous for possibly being poisoned to death by his wife and infamous for possibly being JTR. He is not famous for verse writing.
I read into the context only this that James Maybrick was supposedly jealous of his brothers skills in verse writing. which leads me to ask what were these skills?
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 644
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 21, 2004 - 7:58 am: | |
See?
Desire.
Pure and simple.
Want to the diary to be real?
Simple.
Change the words "the Poste House" to "the Old Post Office."
Sure, it doesn't say that, but do it anyway. It'll help.
Change the words "Tin matchbox empty" to "[the] Tin matchbox [was] empty."
Sure, it doesn't say that, but do it anyway. It'll help.
Change the words "If Michael can succeed in rhyming verse then I can do better..." to "If Michael can manage to rhyme verse then I can do better..."
Sure, it doesn't say that, but do it anyway. It'll help.
Hey! 
I think I see the problem.
Caroline is reading a different book than the rest of us!
Or, more precisely, she now seems to be writing one.
No wonder we're having so many difficulties!
--John (who thinks we should all chip in an send Caroline a copy of the diary, so she can talk about the words that are actually on the pages)
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1208
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 7:19 am: | |
Well, if it's good enough for John... He started the ball rolling, of course, by insisting that 'succeed in' should actually read 'be famous for'.
I'm still trying to find a single reference in the diary to Sir Jim wanting his funny little rhymes set to music and sung, since John claims the hoaxer had James trying to outdo his clever brother at writing song lyrics.
I just wonder how Flo Aunspaugh would have reacted to the irony of the coincidence: she refers to Michael – well known in his day as a musical composer – thinking he should be classed with poets who bask in infinitely more lasting fame; and a hundred years on we have this diary portraying the man’s brother James as an uncelebrated poet, who would class himself with a celebrated musical composer.
Another irony is that this uncelebrated poet is supposed to be Jack the Ripper, a character whose name is infinitely more famous today than that of the celebrated composer.
Love,
Caz
X
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 660
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 7:41 am: | |
And we're back to Flo Aunspaugh.
Why?
Because when the actual words on the page say one thing and you need them to say another about the source of Michael's success, you have to talk about something else.
And when the actual words on the page match the oddly syntaxed phrase of a document the real Maybrick or an old forger could not possibly have seen, you have to talk about something else.
And when the actual words on the page match exactly the uniquely named pub in the exact same city that was not there when the real James or an old forger were around, you have to talk about something else.
And when the data and the history and the records reveal no evidence whatsoever that a person named in the diary ever existed in the right place at the right time, you have to talk about something else.
And when the history and the records and the data directly contradict the details of some of the most celebrated murders of all time, you have to talk about something else.
And when the guy who brings the diary forward is also the only guy who can mysteriously give us the source for five completely unidentified words from the whole history of writing and has what might well be the only other book in all of publishing history with the same line isolated and excerpted in the middle of it, you have to talk about something else.
And when the handwriting is clearly not the handwriting of the supposed author's, you have to talk about something else.
In the end, either you change what the words on the page actually say to fit your desire, or you talk about something else (like a single quote from Flo Aunspaugh about what she says that Michael once said about himself).
Except of course, for Caroline.
She does both.
But you gotta' love the desperation in the reading,
--John |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 799
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 8:30 am: | |
I have to say Michael Maybrick could probably write verse. there i've said it!
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 663
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 8:49 am: | |
Hi Jen,
I don't believe anyone here is saying that he couldn't.
It a question of what the diary says.
And ask yourself, why would the real James choose to jealously obsess not over what made his brother so famous and such a success, but over something else he might have been able to do?
Oh, wait, here's a possible reason -- it gave the forgers a convenient, if completely made up, excuse to have him fill the pages of the forgery with doggerel and revisions rather than details of his life or of the crimes that might actually be checked against history.
Very convenient, no? It's simple common sense, no?
And, guess what?
Some of those few details that they did see fit to include from the history of the crimes...
THEY GOT WRONG!
AND THEY GOT THE HANDWRITING COMPLETELY WRONG!
AND THEY CAME UP WITH NO REAL VERIFIABLE PROVENANCE WHATSOEVER!
And they included a line from a document the real James could not possibly have seen and they had him drinking in a pub he could not possibly have been and they had him talking to someone who does not seem to ever have existed and all the rest.
Now I know what you're thinking.
These sound like pretty crummy forgers.
They sound awfully careless.
So how could this book be taken for the real thing, how could it get published as possibly authentic, how could people still believe it might be real?
Those, Jennifer, are very good questions.
But like many such questions, the answers to them tell us a good deal more about the desires of the readers in the world than about the quality of this forgery.
(Which sucks, by the way.)
--John
PS: Sometimes I wish that there was some evidence, even a single solitary piece, somewhere on earth that even remotely suggests that this thing might be real or old. BUT OBVIOUSLY THERE'S NOT. You never see anyone offer even one little piece here among all the evidence we are discussing that suggests the opposite. That's sort of sad actually. |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 813
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 3:27 pm: | |
Hey John,
yes exactly, very convenient,
Jen
ps umm ...
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Mark Andrew Pardoe
Inspector
Username: Picapica
Post Number: 255
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 6:42 pm: | |
Whatho all,
Michael Maybrick was not famous for writing music in 1888, Stephan Adams was.
Therefore perhaps (here we go) Michael Maybrick was an incredibly successful poet under another name (now I've done it).
Cheers, Mark (who is pleased to see the spirit of Melvin Harris survives) |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 670
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 6:53 pm: | |
Perhaps, indeed, Mark. 
Thanks for making me smile.
And for contributing to the spirit of Imagination that makes Diary World the happiest place on Earth.
The diary might be a fake, but hey, a dream is just a wish your heart makes.
Figment thanks you, too.
--John |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 819
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 8:34 am: | |
Mark - I think someone would know!
Jenni
ahh figment hey John, he's so cool i want to keep him here in the house!
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 862
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 3:25 pm: | |
Hi, Mark, John, Jen, etc.
Ironically, it was not Michael Maybrick aka Stephen Adams who was the poet, but his songwriting partner, Frederic Weatherly. See the following--
Frederic Edward Weatherly (1848-1929), was a songwriter and in his later years, a radio entertainer. Born in Portishead, Somersetshire in England he studied law at Brasenose College and was a barrister of the Inner Temple in 1887. Weatherly also wrote a number of books including children's books . . . He also was a prolific poet, which was the source of his song lyric talent as well. . .
"According to Michael R. Turner and Antony Miall in The Edwardian Song-Book: Drawing-Room Ballads 1900-1914, Methuen, London, 1982:
"The most prolific poet of the Edwardian--and for that matter Victorian and Georgian--ballad, the genial and indefatigable Fred E. (Frederick Edward) Weatherly (1848-1929) was virtually a one-man song factory. Seven of his lyrics appear in this book, but he wrote thousands, of which at least fifteen hundred were published, with music by dozens of composers who vied to get their hands on his verses. . . . The law was as much a love as poetry, and he studied and was called to the Bar at the age of thirty-nine, thereafter enjoying a comfortable career on the Western Circuit, often appearing in criminal cases, almost invariably for the defence. According to his own account, in court he was remarkably keen-witted and effective. Songs poured from him, he translated opera (including Cav. and Pag.) and he published quantities of verse and children's books. He revelled in his considerable celebrity. A little man physically, he had, as a friend put it, 'a blithe and tender soul'. He may have been self-satisfied but he was much loved and was certainly no fool, cheerfully dismissing his facility as a lyricist as no safe ticket to Parnassus. His most commercially successful ballad was 'Roses of Picardy' which became one of the great popular songs of the Great War, and it made its writer a small fortune."
See Sacred Songs for the Home; Sunday In The Parlor, Page 1
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 675
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 4:48 pm: | |
Hi Chris,
Thanks for that. As I've mentioned on another thread, I'm sure someone will turn up soon enough with another supposedly spectacular revelation about the Maybrick family and poetry or the Crashaw family and Liverpool or the Maybrick family and the religious world or some sort of link between Michael and poetry or a Maybrick relative and Crashaw's genealogy or some publisher and some Maybrick or some other such distant and desperate connection that will be intended to suggest that Michael wrote a lot of verse or read a lot of verse or that James might have seen some of Crashaw's work somewhere somehow if you just imagine hard enough.
But of course, it won't be able to link James to the line that appears extracted and cited in the diary and the Sphere Guide.
And it won't explain the amazing coincidence that perhaps the only two books in the entire history of publishing which had that one line excerpted and cited in the middle of them both end up in the hands of the same guy (not James Maybrick, of course, but Mike Barrett).
Nor will it explain why the fictional James is jealously obsessing not over what made his famous brother so successful, but rather over something else he might nor might not have been able to do.
Although we know why, don't we?
Page after page of time wasting nonsense.
Of course, it still didn't prevent our forgers from getting several of the few details they did finally put in from the real history wrong.
Because, obviously, they sucked.
It's too bad they weren't at least as good at looking things up as Chris George is. Then we'd have some real doubts as to whether this thing was authentic or not.
Unless Chris was clever enough to create a bad forgery on purpose, figuring no one would ever suspect him, since they'd naturally think he'd produce a better mess than this silly thing that's not even in the right handwriting and has no provenance of any real sort and gets so much stuff wrong and has these ahistorical details and simple anachronisms....
Nah, Chris wouldn't be that clever.
Would he?
Happy to end with that Feldmaniacal question,
--John
|
Mark Andrew Pardoe
Inspector
Username: Picapica
Post Number: 256
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 5:36 am: | |
Whatho Chris,
Old Fred wrote thousands of lyrics . You wonder how good they were.
Perhaps at the next meeting at the City Darts we could have a Frederick E Weatherly sing-song with Mike Barrett on the banjo.
Cheers, Mark (who is polishing his spoons) |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 827
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 5:42 am: | |
Hey everyone,
can i just ask where is the drive as in 'strolled by the drive..'?
Thanks
Jen
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Simon Owen
Detective Sergeant
Username: Simonowen
Post Number: 94
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 6:33 am: | |
Thanks Chris G for an enlightening post !
It seems clear now that Fred Weatherly wrote the verses for whichever composer was lucky enough to work with him , another nail in the coffin of the argument that Michael Maybrick wrote lyrics.
There is no evidence that Michael had any poetry or lyrics published , we might assume that he was a bit of a poetaster as many men were in those days but thats not enough for him to be called ' successful ' is it ?
Semantic arguments over successful/succeeding in and successful/famous just don't cut it here - this is a clumsy mistake by our forger ! |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 863
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 9:47 am: | |
Hi, Jen
It is not clear what drive the writer is referring to.
The diarist could have meant Aigburth Road, which was a main thoroughfare and tram route from the Liverpool city center, a few hundred yards east of Battlecrease House.
On the other hand, they might mean Princes Drive or one of the drives in Sefton Park. Both Princes Park and Sefton Park are Victorian parks that were popular for gents and ladies of the day to take their daily constitutional.
If, as I have stated, the "Mrs. Hammersmith" that appears in the Diary is a surrogate for Mrs. Briggs, an actual figure in the Maybrick case, the wife of Thomas Charles Briggs, who lived at Livingstone Avenue, Sefton Park, the diarist might have been envisioning a drive in that well-known Liverpool city park when they described the encounter with Mrs. Hammersmith.
Best regards
Chris George
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 839
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 10:14 am: | |
Chris
Thanks for that I guess I was just curious
Jenni
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 682
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 10:40 am: | |
I STILL say that Chris George knows just a little too much about all of this, and his quaint "no one knows what the diarist meant" ploy may well be designed to distract us from his impressive body of knowledge about both Maybrick and the Ripper. 
Has anyone ever seen what Chris's handwriting looks like?
I know I haven't.
Still on the trail,
--John (just being goofy, since there is no evidence and no serious case being made anywhere for anything other than a modern forgery) |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 868
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 1:21 pm: | |
Hi, John
Nice try but I was fully vetted some time ago by Stephen Ryder and a tribunal of Ripperologists, and found to be not guilty in the matter of the forgery of the Diary. The prosecution was unable to prove that I furnished any Ripper or Maybrick books to the forgers, and that I do not live on receipts from the Diary. Appearances notwithstanding that I appear to possess an uncanny knowledge of my native Liverpool and its Maybrick and Ripper associations. 
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 686
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 8:37 pm: | |
Well, Chris, if you can get a "tribunal of Ripperologists" to agree on anything, then you are a better man than I can imagine.
But I still have my doubts. Remember, time will reveal all...
At least that's what my intellectual hero Paul Feldman tells me.
Keeping a wary on you,
--John  |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1222
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - 6:52 am: | |
Hi All,
Simon wrote:
‘…the argument that Michael Maybrick wrote lyrics.’
What ‘argument’?
The diarist doesn’t have Michael writing lyrics, or being famous for doing so – he has him ‘succeed in' rhyming 'verse' and, later in the diary, writing ‘a merry tune’.
What the diarist succeeds in doing is to portray Sir Jim obsessing over Michael and his comparatively successful attempts at rhyming verse, at a time when the real Michael was apparently obsessing over the comparative stature of poets such as Shakespeare, Byron, Milton and Tennyson.
It makes me whether Michael secretly wished he could outdo dear Fred as well. Would he have been just a tad jealous – or immensely proud - to see Fred’s name in print alongside those of his poetic idols? 
Love,
Caz
X
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 704
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - 8:57 am: | |
OK, once again Caroline cites the quote from Florence Aunspaugh as her only argument to suggest that the diary makes sense when it has James obsess not over what actually made his brother famous but over something else he might or might not have been able to do.
But the fact that Florence remembered that her father said that Michael was said to think of himself and his place in history in terms of the great pantheon of British poets does NOT tell us that he wrote verse or whether he was ever particularly successful if he did.
Why not?
Good question.
Because Caroline is not giving you the complete context for that quote.
(Is anyone surprised?)
I wasn't going to bother mentioning this, since it already seems irrelevant to the discussion -- what Florence Aunspaugh might have said about what Michael might have thought about his own reputation -- since, that is, what we are supposedly talking about are the actual words on the page and what history tells us (which is that the source of Michael's success was not writing verse, it was composing music, and the whole verse thing could just as well have been a convenient way for forgers to have James obsess jealously and then fill page after page with bad poetry rather than with details about his life and crimes which could be checked against the record).
But since Caroline has returned once again with another silly reference to this one quote, we better see what is really going on.
The complete context for the quote and the discussion concerning it can be found on pages 349 and 350 of Paul Feldman's masterpiece.
It's from that delightful chapter where Feldman is "proving" that Michael Maybrick probably murdered his brother because he knew he was Jack the Ripper. (Yes, people, that's how low Caroline is dragging us at the moment.)
Right after announcing to us with shock (and horror and a hilarious exclamation point) that Michael was a "Thirtieth Degree!" Mason, but before he reminds us that the carriage driver John Netley died right in front of Michael's house and that the Maybrick carriage had its crest on the side of it too(!), Paul tells us more about "Michael's position and power."
Then he quotes Florence, who it turns out, is speaking about the fame Michael received from writing the MUSIC to one particular SONG -- "The Holy City" -- and how that THAT led to him thinking about being among the likes of the great names.
Here's the complete quote as it appears in Paul Feldman's "book."
"Michael Maybrick realised over half a million dollars on that song [Holy City]. He had been courted by royalty, the Pope and all the celebrities of the world and it had 'turned his head'. My father did not like or admire him at all. He said his success had endowed him with the 'superiority complex' and thought he had forgotten more than anyone else ever did know...
"Thee English cotton brokers literally despised Michael. After he wrote 'The Holy City', the popularity of that song made an absolute fool of him and classed himself with the nobility and the peerage...
"Michael had the idea, especially after he wrote 'The Holy City' that he was floating on the Celestial plains and he did not belong on Earth...
"He [Michael] thought he should be classes with Shakespeare, Byron, Milton and Tennyson. My father often laughed and said 'Michael had already engaged a tomb in Westminster Abbey...'"
That's the quote.
Now first of all, it is not completely clear that it was Michael who actually gave those names or whether this part of Florence's description of how high and mighty Michael thought he was and that she named these figures as examples of the Pantheon of English writers, driven in part by her father's wise-crack subsequently cited about Westminster Abbey, home, as you all know, of poet's corner, where famous literary figures are buried.
So we don't even know if Michael actually named these names.
Secondly, the quote quite clearly says this self-important ego inflation was "especially" the result of writing "The Holy City" -- a SONG, not a poem.
In review, it appears that Caroline's use of this quote to indicate that Michael thought himself a great poet or even that he wrote verse at all is simple disingenuous at best or deliberately misleading at worst.
It is almost Feldmaniacal.
So let's forget this nonsense about Florence and stick to reading the words on the page and what we know from history, shall we?
Continuously amazed at the stuff that is used here for excuse making and in the sad and desperate attempt to keep hope alive at any cost,
--John
PS: And remember, when Florence Aunspaugh knew these men in the summer of 1888, she was 8 years old. The rest she is remembering decades later based on what she recalls hearing from her father.
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 706
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - 9:48 am: | |
PPS: I've just re-read Caroline's post and realized that based on this quote from Florence, she now has Michael "apparently obsessing" over these names (and their "comparative stature").
That's right. Starting with a quote where Florence is talking about how ego-inflated Michael became because of the fame he received for writing the song 'The Holy City' -- a quote where it is not at all clear whether Michael even said these names or whether, as I've noted, this is part of Florence's (or her father's) description of how high and mighty Michael thought he was -- Caroline now creates a Michael who was "apparently obsessing" over these figures.
I take it back.
This IS completely Feldmaniacal now.
--John
(Message edited by omlor on August 31, 2004) |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 901
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - 10:40 am: | |
John,
not only made me watch that film, now i'm having to read Feldys book again too! (no offence Feldy!)
I don't think even feldys saying Michael thought himself a great poet is he. All thats implied is that Michael had a reputation to save by killing JTR?
Cheers
Jennifer
ps That song would be Jerusalem would it?
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 707
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - 11:24 am: | |
Hi Jen,
Actually, the pages in Feldman that have the quote Caroline gives us only part of, for her own purposes, contain Feldman's creative attempt to give Michael a sound reason for killing his brother.
It goes something like this.
Writing 'The Holy City," Florence tells us, makes Michael so popular he gets a big head. (Remember, she is recalling what her father has said to her about how self-important Michael was behaving and what a fool of himself he was making and that her father thought that Mike thought of himself as if he were "classed with" those famous English writers she names as she mentions her father joking that he had probably had a spot picked out in Westminster -- but of course as is readily apparent when one actually reads the whole series of quotes on page 350 of Feldman, it's not clear whether it was Michael actually choosing those names or Florence or her father using them to describe Michael's big head and his thinking of himself as floating on "the Celestial plain.")
In any case, the quotes also are designed to show us that after the success of the SONG, 'The Holy City,' Michael was hobnobbing with big important people, despite being despised by "these English cotton brokers."
Then Feldman really gets going.
Watch this:
"Michael married Laura Withers, his housekeeper. Laura's great niece, Gay Steinbach, currently lives in Connecticut. In her possession is a picture of Laura Maybrick with Queen Victoria outside Osborne House as well as an invitation to Michael to attend to coronation of Edward VII.
"Jack the Ripper had been associated with royalty for years."
Pretty damning stuff, huh?
And then, after telling us that the pieces were starting to fall into place, Feldman asks another of his wonderfully leading rhetorical questions:
"Did Michael Maybrick know who James was and, if so, when did he find out?"
Feldman then talks about whether Mike knew about Jim's drug habit. And he cites the words in the diary.
And arrives at this stunning conclusion.
"If Florence did not kill James, who did?
"Michael certainly had a motive. Knowledge of James's alter ego would have horrified him. If it were to become public, he would lose everything he had achieved. Wealth, power and position. The risk of James's surviving, and returning to Whitechapel, this time to be caught, was too great for Michael to have contemplated."
Do you see what's happened here?
Feldman has gone from "Michael knew a lot of important people and was famous" to "Michael would have wanted to kill his brother" and his motive is that he knows his brother is Jack the Ripper.
Of course, Feldman never establishes that Michael knew this or even suspected this (or of course that his brother was Jack the Ripper). But that doesn't matter when you're just pretending, just making stuff up, just imagining stuff and then claiming it is scholarship, history, and "the final chapter."
And of course, later, he also claims that "Florence was also a problem," so Michael put her in the frame and made sure she stayed in prison an extra fifteen years after her reprieve, to protect his reputation.
There's no real evidence for any of this nonsense of course.
But he takes a bit of a quote here and a bit of a passage there and just imagines the rest, simply creating behavior whenever he needs to, out of sheer desire.
Sort of like Caroline, when she cites part of Florence Aunspaugh's remarks about what her father told her about the fame Michael received for writing the music to one particular song, and then because Florence names poets in her comparison, she assumes Michael must have too and that he was "apparently obsessing" over these names."
It's fiction.
It's the deliberately partial reading and presentation of material.
It's misleading.
It's imagination.
It's Feldmaniacal.
But at least Caroline has learned from a master.
Enjoy the reading, Jennifer,
--John
|
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 881
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - 4:17 pm: | |
Hi, all
Look "The Holy City" up on the web and I think that you will find that it was not published until 1892, four years after the Ripper murders, three years after James Maybrick's death and Florie's conviction. See Stephen Adams (Michael Maybrick). The story that is sometimes told that Florie sang "The Holy City" on Michael Maybrick's yacht off the Isle of Wight is probably apocryphal. Florence Aunspaugh's recollection years later about a time when she was only age eight that Michael was puffed up with having written "The Holy City" is probably faulty on that score, as well as possibly her recollection that he was "classing" himself with famous English poets.
Rather, in terms of the song, Florence is remembering Michael Maybrick years later in light of a later achievement than when she could have met him at Battlecrease. This is a common fault with years-later recollections, or even any remembrance recorded some time after an event, such memories become colored with other facts about the person or event than the person could have known at the time the event occurred.
But let's presume that Florence Aunspaugh was absolutely correct about the worthies that Michael named. That is, that Michael really did say something along the lines that "He [Michael] thought he should be classed with Shakespeare, Byron, Milton and Tennyson." If this is a crystal clear memory of Michael's boastful talk, he was classifying himself among the famous not necessarily with poets as such. It is still insufficient for to allow us to believe that Michael was an ardent writer of poetry. No manuscripts or any other material has been produced to the effect that he wrote poetry or was a day-to-day versifier. If he wrote anything, it was probably what we think he wrote: music.
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
|
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 882
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - 4:57 pm: | |
P.S. Maybrick autographs and letters sometimes come up for sale, but they are usually letters or autographs of Florence Maybrick, the convicted murderess, e.g, a 1999 sale of a letter by Florence, offered by the San Francisco firm of PBA Galleries, estimated prices at the end of the listing in U.S. dollars of course:
WIFE OF JACK THE RIPPER!
218. Maybrick, Florence Elizabeth. 1865-1941. Southern belle who married James Maybrick, an Englishman who owned a trading firm in Liverpool, in 1881. In 1889 she was accused of poisoning him with arsenic, was tried in one of the century's most famous cases, was convicted and sentenced to death. Her sentence was commuted to twenty years, of which she served fifteen, being released in 1904. According to a book released in 1993, The Diary of Jack the Ripper, recently discovered evidence identifies James Maybrick as Jack the Ripper and further claims that Florie did not poison her husband but he died from accidental self-inflicted overdoses of arsenic. Autograph Letter Signed in full on her monogrammed personal stationery, two pages, octavo, New York, 6 February 1905. To Mr. Collins thanking him for his many courtesies: ...I shall always merit your goodwill & have the benefit of your counsel... Minor soiling, else fine. A very rare autograph. (600/900)
(http://www.pbagalleries.com/catalogs/curcat179-3.html)
It seems that poems by Michael Maybrick are thin on the ground or non-existent, or otherwise we would see them up for sale. Nor does any library or university manuscript archive appear to have such evidence of Michael's literary works, if any.
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 710
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - 5:40 pm: | |
Thanks, Chris, for the excellent research.
Of course, Paul Feldman is not likely to give us the specific dates and all of that in his prose, because he wants it to appear as if Michael was this ego-driven and self-important when he was killing his brother.
(Oh, brother... Indeed.)
But then Paul's book is full of such sloppy and often deliberately misleading stuff.
I'm just sorry that Caroline saw fit to use it here to excuse yet another of the diary's silly qualities.
Now, wasn't this thread supposed to be about some lady who does not seem to have existed in the right historical place at the right historical time?
Always trying to refocus,
--John |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 913
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 6:03 am: | |
John,
indeed but who was the little Hamersmiths mother/father on the 1901 census, unless of course its a typo/error on the online system (but surely that is unlikely!!)
Jenni
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
|
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