The Ripper & the Royals, by Melvyn Fairclough & Joseph Sickert - SIGNED by both
The Ripper & the Royals, by Melvyn Fairclough. 1991 first printing hardcover. 260 pages, very nice condition. (title page has a slice at the top). $10
& we have a signed edition:
The Ripper & the Royals, by Melvyn Fairclough. 1991 first printing hardcover. 260 pages, very nice condition. SIGNED by the author and Joseph Sickert, with several relevant newspaper clippings. $75 (last 4 pics)
The Whitechapel murders of 1888 continue to fascinate and baffle the public. Who was Jack the Ripper? Was he some lone maniac “down on whores?” Or were the Ripper murders, as this book shows, the joint enterprise of a group of high-ranking desperadoes acting to protect the Prince of Wales’s heir, the Duke of Clarence, from blackmail? Many hitherto unknown facts are presented in this authoritative book, and Melvyn Fairclough skillfully unravels the nexus of intrigue that has threatened the Royal family for three generations.
Includes a foreword by Joseph Sickert (1925 - 2003), who claimed to be the illegitimate son of noted impressionist painter Walter Sickert (1860 - 1942) and rumoured grandson of Prince Albert Victor Duke of Clarence and Avondale, heir to the British throne. Walter Sickert was a friend of the Duke’s who painted artwork eerily reminiscent of the Jack the Ripper crime scenes. Joeseph Sickert (aka Joseph Gorman) had initially told Stephen Knight the story of his father’s involvement in the Ripper murders, as was revealed to him by his late father, for Knight’s 1976 book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution. Sickert and Knight had a falling out and was never given the full story, however. This, he claims is the complete picture and definitive account. New facts plus the true circumstances of Mary Kelly's gruesome murder in Miller's Court and the nexus of intrigue that threatened the Royal succession for 3 generations are all chronicled. Also includes the astonishing identity of the Ripper ringleader. Ironical details from our own days are presented, such as Sickert's encounter with Peter Sutcliffe, later identified as the 'Yorkshire Ripper,' who pestered Sickert for inside information about his famous predecessor.