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A Handbook for Attendants on the Insane: the autobiography of 'Jack the Ripper' as revealed to Clanash Farjeon

by Clanash Farjeon

325 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0155; ISBN 1-55395-792-X; US$26.50, C$31.50, EUR22.00, £15.50

Can murder set you free? Can God be served by bloodshed? Jack the Ripper cuts to the heart of mankind's madness in this provocative novel.

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about the book      about the author      reviews and excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book Clanash Farjeon has dared to unmask the horror from the killer's point of view. Lyttleton Stewart Forbes Winslow was a well-known psychologist and ardent investigator of the crimes. In 1889 he had boasted to the press - "I am as certain that I have the murderer as I am of being here." In his memoirs, Recollections of Forty Years , written in 1910, he insisted that there were eight murders, not five, and claimed that he had singlehandedly chased Jack the Ripper from England. " . . I was more than satisfied . . that was the general opinion of everyone in England except the Scotland Yard authorities . . I should like to ask them one question though, 'If I did not arrest the murderous hand of Jack the Ripper, who did, and what part did they play in the transaction?' . ." Was this troubled scion of the Pilgrim Fathers uniquely in a position to know? " . . Day after day and night after night I spent in the Whitechapel slums. The detectives knew me, the lodging-house keepers knew me, and at last the poor creatures of the streets came to know me . . To me the frightened women looked for hope. In my presence they felt reassured and welcomed me to their dens and obeyed my commands eagerly . . " Has a tortured impulse to confess lain long buried beneath these words? Amidst a vivid evocation of London life in the 1880's, Winslow unfolds the peculiar circumstances of his early years, the telling details of his family history, a shocking blow by blow depiction of each fatal encounter and his fond remembrance of the unfortunate victims of his unholy crusade. How did a 'perfectly normal upper-middle-class father and reasonably successful professional man' become the Whitechapel fiend? Why did the carnage begin? Why did it stop? What will your response be to the revelation of his all too human motives? Reality or fiction? This audacious work, though its concerns transcend any attempt to prove a particular identity, nonetheless paints such a compelling portrait that it may challenge the Ripperologists to reopen the case.

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About the Author Clanash Farjeon is the nom de plume of the well-known Canadian actor, director and author, Alan Scarfe. For further information read the interview at: www.booksandauthors.net/Interviews/AScarfe.html

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Reviews and Excerpts

"Thanks for your wonderful book!" - Stephen King

"I confess to having been a murderer only twice in my lifetime. First when Dostoyevsky allowed me into the mind of Raskolnikov. Second when Clanash Farjeon allowed me into the mind of Jack the Ripper. All praise for his knowledge of the history of the time, his command of the Victorian idiom, his commendable empathy for the criminal mind and his brilliant resolution. It was a let-down when I reached the last page, for I wanted more. Believers, and anyone who has a vested interest in religion, likely will be vocal when they discuss the plot. Rationalists and anyone attracted to the humanities will find the author's first novel a candidate for being one of the best murder mysteries ever!" --- Warren Allen Smith, author of Who's Who in Hell

"The title of this work intrigued me from the outset, and I will be damned, but it has to take its place amongst the finest books on historical crime ever published . . . Every page is a delicious banquet of marvellous prose . . . A feast of historical information . . . No gentle reversing of the calendar to the late 1880's. The author grabs you by the scruff of the neck, drags you to the edge of the abyss and, without so much as a backward look, kicks you in . . . From the criminological arena, although a novel, the entire book is a masterpiece. The author knows Jack the Ripper's mind better than the serial murderer ever did. I shall read it again and again." --- Christopher Berry-Dee, Director, Criminology Research Institute, "www.thecriminologist.com"

"It was a very good idea to use Lyttleton Forbes Winslow as a Ripper suspect. The author catches the Victorian idiom beautifully and I think it is altogether as good a piece of Ripper fiction as I have ever read. I hope it gets an airing with a wider audience than Ripperologists - it certainly deserves it. In spite of its subject, the book even has a certain charm!" --- Colin Wilson, author of The Outsider and Jack the Ripper: Summing Up and Verdict.

"An extraordinary novel. We agree with Colin Wilson. Our highest accolade . . . recommended!" --- Ripperologist Magazine

"The true genius of Handbook is that one is continually nodding, 'yes, that's how it must have happened.' It is that rare novel that achieves, like its subject, a minor immortality." --- Christopher-Michael diGrazia, editor, Ripper Notes, the American Journal for Ripper Studies

"A remarkable trip into a twisted mind. Chock-a-block with the detail one would expect from a good Victorian storyteller. Winslow makes a fascinating and horrifying villain!"--- Donal O'Connor, Stratford Beacon Herald

"The most horrifying thing about murderers is that, to all outward appearances, they are normal. Farjeon effectively takes you into the mind of the psychopath, complete with life history, motivations and desires and fills in the missing pieces of a believably evil character who lived his ordinary life by day and took to the streets at night to fulfill his need for the ultimate rush." --- Mike Wild, Crime Library @ courttv.com

Excerpt from the end of Chapter Two

". . During those same years, in addition to the shatteringly unpleasant business described above, I had been dealing with a weight of other litigation, all directly in connection with my semi-official capacity at the asylums.

One such notorious case, well, a whole series of cases, in fact, were brought against me by a certain Mrs. Georgiana Weldon. Against me and another consulting physician, several newspaper editors, and, if you can believe it, the great composer Charles Gounod, who was then resident conductor of the Covent Garden Opera House, for once allegedly overcharging her for the rental of the Opera House for a protest meeting! The entire affair was beyond idiocy.

Briefly, Mrs. Weldon was a relatively well-to-do and not unattractive redhead, of fiery temperament, whose husband was some sort of minor official in the royal household. Whether she truly needed confinement or not is, of course, a matter of opinion but her husband certainly thought so and had sought my help in having her certified and committed to the asylum at Hammersmith.

When I arrived to take her thence I found the doors to her apartment barred. But, headstrong as always, I forced an entry. What I had not been told, however, was that the secretary of the Alleged Lunatic's Friend Society . . no, this is not some bizarre invention of mine, it really existed . . was inside. He was himself a former mental patient and he had, before my arrival, already spirited Mrs. Weldon away, dressed in a nun's habit.

It cost me a small fortune in the end. The judge, a Baron Huddleston, caused me to pay five hundred pounds in damages and my reputation took a terrible beating in the press. It was abominably unfair.

The wretched judge in his closing statement gave birth to what came to be known as the 'crossing-sweeper' summation. Basically, he insinuated that if any common labourer wanted to put someone away in a private asylum he merely had to find, and I quote, ". . two medical men who had never had a day's practice in their lives and they would, for a trifling sum, grant the certificates." As you can see, this was a gross and intentional misrepresentation of the facts of what had happened but the damned calumny stuck to me like glue. I was simply made a cat's-paw of the imperfections of the Lunacy Act. I was in no way responsible for any wrong-doing. And far from being unpracticed in matters of lunacy, I was, as we know, brought up in its very atmosphere. It was un-Christian persecution, plain and simple, and I bore the brunt of it, at the time, without assistance and without the slightest trace of sympathy.

What a galling irony it was to think back to that proudest of days in my life when I received the degree of D.C.L from the University of Oxford for my thesis on 'The History of Lunacy Legislation'. I obtained this degree at the age of twenty-six, the youngest recipient ever to receive it in the history of the University! And I had, some years later, been made an LL.D. at Cambridge for my researches 'On the Criminal Responsibility of the Insane'. These rare honours had been such a source of satisfaction to me! And now what? I was forty-one years old and an object of public ridicule. I was in virtual bankruptcy and the cost to my marriage had been dear in the extreme. I ask you, now what? Some outburst could hardly be entirely unexpected, could it?"

Excerpt from the end of Chapter Three

" . . . I walked quietly again to the dead woman and looked down at her. What had she said her name was? 'Fay'? Her hair had come unpinned and strands of grey were soaking up her blood. I thought of my grandmother and the stare of a Gorgon that had made me shriek. I knelt down and closed her eyes. The receding life force still had power to tickle mysteriously at my fingertips. I wiped the blood from my hands on her skirt. Rough, rough cloth it was and not easily absorbent. I shook the blood from my sleeve as best as I could and cleaned the blade, placing it carefully once again under my arm and down the inside of my waistcoat. It still felt warm as I bid 'Fay' adieu.

I remember whistling softly to myself as I strolled calmly away down the Minories, passing beneath the brooding Tower walls like a ghost to Lower Thames Street where I paused in a state of strange euphoria to admire the black silk waters of the river, the blood of the earth, shimmering in the moonlight. I had a momentary thought to toss the knife in but I couldn't bring myself to part with it. Besides, what possible connection could I have to such a murder? And who, alas, would care for the death of poor old 'Fay'?

I continued on, heedless now of apprehension, through the anonymous mackerel bustle outside the new Billingsgate Market and across Pudding Lane where the Great Fire had been unluckily sparked by the King's baker in 1666. But it killed the rats and brought an end to the Plague! As I stood entranced before the enduring elegance of Christopher Wren's Monument to the fire, a hansom came noisily along from London Bridge and I was pleased to hail it home. It was just twenty-five minutes past five when I re-entered the front door of 70, Wimpole Street.

I remember checking my shoes carefully, uppers and soles and inside as well, returning the knife spotless to its appointed place in the curio cabinet, then going upstairs and washing the remaining blood from my hands and the front and right sleeve of my coat and the cuffs of my jacket and shirt. I left the clothes to dry above the bath. Freddy would send them out for cleaning when he arrived at seven. I told him I had slipped and fallen in a puddle. He enquired if I had sustained any injury and I assured him, no, and that I would have the usual for breakfast, thank you.

As I sat down in my study in a fresh suit of clothes to read the morning papers and wait for hot buttered toast and eggs and tea, I discovered to my surprise that I wasn't in the least bit tired. Quite the contrary . . I felt reborn."

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Catalogue Information

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