Word: hoffbrand
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...crimes and the killer are intertwined with London's identity and history," says Julia Hoffbrand, co-curator a new major exhibition, "Jack the Ripper and the East End," at London's Museum in Docklands. Of the many hardscrabble neighborhoods of Dickensian London, none was more blighted than Whitechapel, a grim, crowded East End hellhole, rife with poverty, disease, crime and homelessness. Prostitution was widespread; alcohol was plentiful. Whitechapel as an ominous, foggy maze of gaslit, cobbled streets, alleys and dead ends "is still very much the public image of the East End now," says Hoffbrand...
...Central News Agency. It purported to be from the murderer, promised more killings, and was signed, "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper." The letter was republished by many papers, though police considered it hoax, possibly written by a journalist. Still, the name stuck. "It seized the public's imagination," Hoffbrand says. It also resulted in a torrent of other gruesome - and probably fake - letters being sent to newspapers and police, each purporting to be from the killer...
...exhibition includes the more well-known suspects, but makes no attempt to solve the case. "It's not a whodunit," Hoffbrand says. Actually, 120 years after the fact, it doubtful anyone really wants to see the world's most famous murder mystery solved. That might spoil the rich legacy of Jack the Ripper. And rich it certainly is - a multimillion-dollar industry, featuring periodicals, chatrooms, websites, conventions and the countless books that continue to be written on the subject. The murders have also inspired numerous films, plays and TV dramas, even several stage musicals...
...avoid one of the myriad Jack the Ripper walking tours crisscrossing its narrow streets. One operator, London Walks, says of the 140 tours it offers, the Ripper walk "is by far the most popular," the only one scheduled seven evenings a week. "He's almost become a fictional character," Hoffbrand says. "We're obsessed with...
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