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Post by benedictjjones on Jun 19, 2009 16:39:50 GMT
From what i can make out, Donald McCormick is something of a controversial figure in Ripper circles and the experts are keen to point out that he's of a generation of journalists who blatantly cut their facts to support their theory and omitted any trifling evidence that might explode it. ! same as that american crime writer lady who did the docu a few years back!! |
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Post by mattofthespurs on Jun 20, 2009 6:51:57 GMT
From what i can make out, Donald McCormick is something of a controversial figure in Ripper circles and the experts are keen to point out that he's of a generation of journalists who blatantly cut their facts to support their theory and omitted any trifling evidence that might explode it. ! same as that american crime writer lady who did the docu a few years back!! Patricia Cornell |
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Post by lordfroggy on Jun 20, 2009 9:24:02 GMT
I'm not a Ripperologist either Dem, I picked it up because it was an old Pan paperback with a cool cover... for some strange reason I also have Patricia Cornell's ripper book too.
I think a friend gave me a review copy that no one was interested in where he worked.
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Post by dem on Jun 20, 2009 13:51:32 GMT
sure i read somewhere (Fortean Times?) that a number of the legends that sprang up around Partricia Cornwall's research - most notably, that she'd vandalised a Walter Sickert painting to obtain a sample of his DNA - were grossly exaggerated beyond all proportion?
Much as i love to detest the entire Ripper industry, must admit a sneaking fondness for the Ripperologists who continue to provide much of what passes for entertainment in these parts, notably when the more rabid of the authors set about tearing everyone else's pet theories apart as it were. The Golden Age was the centenary, with local residents taking umbrage at the influx of experts gathering under their window, lovingly banging on about Mary Kelly and her mutilations to an avid crowd of ghouls. There was a bit of a clampdown on Ripper Tours after that, but you still see 'em around, congregating around a multi-story car-park,trying to pretend it almost transports them back to the good old days before Millers Court and all the rest of those no-go slums and rookeries were scandalously demolished.
And then a moist-eyed Mad Frankie Fraser/ Ronnie & Reggie Kray tour party come marching past on their way to The Blind Beggar, to natter about how you could leave your front door open and villains were so much nicer back in the 'sixties.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jun 21, 2009 9:10:28 GMT
Here's the 1962 Pan cover  This my favourite JtR book. Just consists of transcriptions of contemporary documents - fun to browse. There's a fascinating profile by a 19th c. psychologist that reads almost modern.  |
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Post by andydecker on Jun 23, 2009 10:07:28 GMT
A couple of books arrived, yay! Richard Haigh - The Farm and The City Jerry Bronson - The Cut (I wonder if this is really so bad ;D ) Angus Hall - to play the devil (love the cover  ) Richard Davis - The Price of Fear (another one I bought for the cover. But a quick browsing revealed a lot of interesting stuff about this one., so I will write it up) |
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Post by H_P_Saucecraft on Jun 23, 2009 17:40:18 GMT
20p each from charity shop:
Mary Roberts Rhinehart - The Bat. Having seen the Vincent Price film, I snapped this up. (There's 3 or 4 film versions of it I think, can't remember) Intriguingly it lists 2 author copyrights: George H. Doran 1926 & Mary Roberts Rhinehart 1954, perhaps this is a film novelization & the earlier date is the original novel? any ideas anyone?
J.R. Lowell - Daughter Of Darkness
Dennis Wheatley - The Satanist
Dennis Wheatley - Faked Passports (not one of his occult novels, but a Gregory Sallust novel, don't know anything about it)
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Post by lordfroggy on Jun 23, 2009 21:32:03 GMT
A few more books I found today... A Clutch of Vampires - McNally (NEL 1976) The Undead - Dickie (Pan 1973) Monsters - Vogt (Corgi 1977) Sleep No More - Rolt (Branch Line 1974) Traded for a bunch of duplicate paperbacks... cost zero.  |
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Post by dem on Jun 24, 2009 9:17:09 GMT
Picked up a box of ten East End-interest non-fiction books from a jolly smashing young lady in Bethnal Green yesterday after answering her ad on gumtree (we exchanged descriptions beforehand - and she still turned up). They're for the bride, but two that caught my eye are Sarah Wise's The Italian Boy: Murder & Grave- Robbing in 1830's London (Pimlico, 2005) and Mark Whitehead & Miriam Rivett's Jack The Ripper (pocket Essentials, 2006). I already ploughed through the Suspects and Ripping Yarns section of the latter which tackle Ripper lit both fact and fiction in a refreshingly concise and good natured manner. Poor old Donald McCormick gets a mild bashing for his 'Dick Van Dyke'-isms and they're particularly good on Patricia Cornwell's effort - even handed but still scathing. Michel Parry's Jack The Knife clinches the top anthology spot!
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jun 24, 2009 13:26:54 GMT
I can see it now.
''Murder & Grave- Robbing', good. 'Jack The Ripper'. Great. Anything on human sacrifice, demonology or torture? Never mind. I can bring some stuff to swap. How will I recognise you anyway? Young, female good looking, alone...'
Only on the Vault
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Post by dem on Jun 24, 2009 14:59:00 GMT
 Looking at it that way, i guess she could have no complaints at what eventually showed up. Even so, it was mortifying to be told "i like your description. I knew it was you straight away!' Like i'm the only "tall, skinny, longhaired ... well ropey-looking - sort of wino-ish" pile of man-junk within a two mile radius of Bethnal Green all of a sudden? 
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Post by killercrab on Jun 24, 2009 15:48:20 GMT
Larry Niven's The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton sporting a lovely PAJ cover! I've been slowly collecting the PAV cover books - part of my nostalgic SF collection. Also Grandreams The Incredible Hulk Annual 1979. Grandreams produced a slew of annuals back in the 1970's using relatively new comics artists who have gone on to become well respected in the field. Brown and Watson also produced annuals wherein you'll find the likes Brian Lewis ( The Sweeney) and John Bolton ( Tarzan and Planet of the Apes). I'm always on the lookout for these!
KC
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jun 24, 2009 18:00:38 GMT
Still better than when some of my 'fans' put up a 'he's far too fat?' poll on facebook. Since that time I have been cycling on an old bike up silent eerie pathways like a micheline man. I even eat margarine now ...like on those horrible middle aged adverts from the 70's
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Post by Steve on Jun 25, 2009 0:22:58 GMT
 Twice as chilling... Twice as terrifying... A new one to me that I picked up a few weeks back. A two-in-one with Pierce Nace's mad mantis classic Eat Them Alive (first NEL paperback 1977) and Fleshbait by David Holman & Larry Pryce (originally published by NEL in 1979). No new publishing information, it's simply the two original books stuck together and wrapped in a new, and fairly unimaginative, generic horror cover (I bought three books from Oxfam that day and all of them had a skull on the front*). The back cover is basically the same as the front but with a slightly different picture (same skull, different bloodstains). RRP was £1.00, so it was a bargain back then and still a nice little oddity to have on the shelf. I suspect neither title sold that well individually at the time if NEL had to repackage their remaindered stock but Eat Them Alive has thankfully gone on to have a life of its own and is now rightfully recognised as being absolutely fucking mental. *For the record, the other two were Haunting Ghost Stories, ed. by Deborah Shine with illustrations by Reg Gray (Octopus, 1980) and Peter Haining's Tales from the Rogues' Gallery (Warner Books, 1995. First published by Little, Brown & Co., 1994). |
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Post by killercrab on Jun 25, 2009 0:31:49 GMT
Now that's one awesome book to own!I love these double dip books and it's good to see a Nel rarity like this turn up - wonder how many were pulped ?
A
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)
Looking at it that way, i guess she could have no complaints at what eventually showed up. Even so, it was mortifying to be told "i like your description. I knew it was you straight away!' Like i'm the only "tall, skinny, longhaired ... well ropey-looking - sort of wino-ish" pile of man-junk within a two mile radius of Bethnal Green all of a sudden? 
