Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper: Media, culture, history collects together some of the best academic work on the most important and sensational murder case of the nineteenth century. Leading scholars in the fields of history, media and cultural studies debate the influence of the Whitechapel Murders on race, gender, the press, fiction, film and the city of London. This is the first collection of its kind to take the Whitechapel Murders seriously as a vital ingredient in the creation of modern Britain, and the first collection of essays from diverse fields of scholarship to offer academic analysis of the representations and influence of the Whitechapel Murders on both the nineteenth century and the contemporary world.

The collection offers a range of readings of Jack the Ripper organised around the disciplinary topics of media, culture and history. Each of the sections develops arguments grounded in the methods of scholarship appropriate to its own discipline: firstly, on the Victorian press and on contemporary fictional and filmic representations. Secondly, on the Whitechapel Murders' influence on nineteenth century and contemporary cultures: in literature, science, and tourism. Thirdly, on the historical forces of female prostitution, racial anxiety, and urban deprivation.

Jack the Ripper will be of interest to scholars of the Victorian period, particularly to those with interests in nineteenth century media, culture and history. It will also be an invaluable resource for lecture courses on Victorian Britain and for students wishing to read the best of the available scholarship on the Whitechapel Murders.

Contents:-
Introduction – Alexandra Warwick and Martin Willis

Part I: Media

1. The house that Jack built – Christopher Frayling

2. The pursuit of angles  – L. Perry Curtis

3. Casting the spell of terror: the press and the early Whitechapel Murders – Darren Oldridge
4. Order out of chaos – Gary Coville and Patrick Lucanio

5. Blood and ink: narrating the Whitechapel Murders – Alexandra Warwick
Part II: Culture
6. The Ripper writing: a cream of a nightmare dream – Clive Bloom
7. The Whitechapel Murders and the medical gaze – Andrew Smith
8. ‘Jonathan’s great knife’: Dracula meets Jack the Ripper – Nicholas Rance
9. Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes and the narrative of detection – Martin Willis
10. Living in the slashing grounds: Jack the Ripper, monopoly rent and the new heritage – David Cunningham
Part III: History
11. Narratives of sexual danger – Judith Walkowitz
12. Jack the Ripper as the threat of outcast London – Robert F. Haggard
13. ‘Who kills whores?’ ‘I do’, says Jack: race and gender in Victorian London – Sander L. Gilman
14. East End 1888 – William Fishman
Index