Saucy Jack - Wordsmith.org

Has anyone else read (or is reading) the book by Patricia Cornwell about Jack the Ripper? She presents her argument that impressionist painter Walter Sickert was the killer. It's pretty interesting. Comments?

Here's a link that says she's some kind of nut.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,615448,00.html

Sickert, Walter Richard (1860-1942), German-born English painter, who painted urban life and genre scenes. He was a pupil of the American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Later, influenced by the coolly analytical paintings of the French artist Edgar Degas, he painted realistic scenes of London theaters, pubs, music halls, and humble interiors. His enthusiasm for his rough, sometimes sordid, subject matter gave many of his pictures verve and excitement.

"Sickert, Walter Richard," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

A German site says Joseph was "uneheliche" son of Walter. Mother's name not given.

Just about all of the evidence collected by the Metropolitan Police (London, that is) has been destroyed. What is left is a mass of circumstantial evidence that can be used to prove a wide range of suspects. A lot depends on whether you are prepared to bnelieve that a bunch of prsotitutes gathered enough evidence to blackmail the Royal Family through Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence & Avon (then second in line to the throne - eldest son of the Prince of Wales, who became King Edward VII) Most of the evidence comes via Joseph Sickert, Walter's son, and relies on hearsay, and "remembering" what his father had told him.

As circumstantial evidence, it is pretty powerful stuff - but there is almost no hard evidence to support it.

If you offered it to me as an essay for my course on the Victorian Underworld, you'd get pretty low marks!

EDIT see The Ripper and the Royals, Melvyn Fairclough - (1992)

In reply to:
Most of the evidence comes via Joseph Sickert, Walter's son, and relies on hearsay, and "remembering" what his father had told him.

I thought that Sickert was childless and that Joseph "Sickert" was a fraud. Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else had read the book. It is very interesting. I think it is a shame though that she destroyed one or more of his paintings.