Rivals of the Ripper: Unsolved Murders of Women in Late Victorian London

by Jan Bondeson

Overview

When discussing unsolved murders of women in late Victorian London, most people think of the depredations of Jack the Ripper, the Whitechapel Murderer. But he was just one of a string of phantom murderers whose unsolved slayings outraged late Victorian Britain. The mysterious Great Coram Street, Burton Crescent and Euston Square murders were talked about with bated breath, and the northern part of Bloomsbury got the unflattering nickname of the ‘murder neighbourhood’ thanks to its profusion of unsolved mysteries.

Marvel at the convoluted Kingswood Mystery, littered with fake names and mistaken identities; be puzzled by the blackmail and secret marriage in the Cannon Street Murder; and shudder at the vicious yet silent killing in St Giles that took place in a crowded house in the dead of night.

Rivals of the Ripper is the first to resurrect these unsolved Victorian murder mysteries, and to highlight the ghoulish handiwork of the Rivals of the Ripper: the spectral killers of gas-lit London.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780750996860
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	01/01/2022
Edition description:	Second Edition,New edition
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

JAN BONDESON is senior lecturer at Cardiff University and a respected true crime historian, having written many books, among them The London Monster, Queen Victoria's Stalker and Murder Houses of London.

Table of Contents

Introduction 7

1 The Kingswood Rectory Murder, 1861 9

2 The St Giles's Murder, 1863 31

3 The Dead Secret: The Cannon Street Murder, 1866 49

4 The Took Puzzle, 1871 75

5 The Hoxton Horror, 1872 99

6 The Great Coram Street Murder, 1872 121

7 The Burton Crescent Murders, 1878 and 1884 155

8 The Euston Square Mystery, 1879 181

9 Murder and Mystery in the Year of the Ripper, 1887 and 1888 217

10 The Canonbury Murder, 1888 237

11 The Murder of Amelia Jeffs and the Disappearances in West Ham, 1890 255

12 The Murder of Elizabeth Camp, 1897 277

13 The Ripper and his Rivals 307

Notes 323

Bibliography 342

Index 345

Editorial Reviews

"Bondeson . . . has again done true crime devotees a service by providing a look at cases that were local sensations at the time but have largely faded from memory." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

05/02/2016
Bondeson (Murder Houses of South London) does a workmanlike job of chronicling a dozen unsolved cases of murder in London from 1861 to 1897 that have been greatly overshadowed by the Whitechapel murderer. Not all of the individual cases—which include some prostitute killings, two where shopkeepers were probably killed by robbers, and cases where the elderly victims were targeted by burglars—are compelling, but even the more prosaic ones offer insights into the state of policing at the time. The most unsettling chapter deals with a series of tragedies that few readers will have even heard of: the West Ham Disappearances of the 1880s and 1890s, which culminated in the sexual assault and murder of a 15-year-old girl. Bondeson, whose 2000 book, The London Monster, rescued from obscurity an 18th-century criminal who slashed women, has again done true crime devotees a service by providing a look at cases that were local sensations at the time but have largely faded from memory. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly