Jack the Ripper and the London Press by L Curtis Jr

Jack the Ripper and the London Press by L Curtis Jr

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Summary

The story of Fleet Street's construction of the "Jack the Ripper" murders. It examines how 14 daily and weekly newspapers - including two East End "weeklies" - featured news of Jack the Ripper, in the process revealing the social, political and sexual anxieties of late Victorian Britain.

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Jack the Ripper and the London Press by L Curtis Jr

Press coverage of the 1888 mutilation murders attributed to Jack the Ripper was of necessity filled with gaps and silences, for the killer remained unknown and Victorian journalists had little experience reporting serial murders and sex crimes. This engrossing book examines how fourteen London newspapers—dailies and weeklies, highbrow and lowbrow—presented the Ripper news, in the process revealing much about the social, political, and sexual anxieties of late Victorian Britain and the role of journalists in reinforcing social norms. L. Perry Curtis surveys the mass newspaper culture of the era, delving into the nature of sensationalism and the conventions of domestic murder news. Analyzing the fourteen newspapers—two of which emanated from the East End, where the murders took place—he shows how journalists played on the fears of readers about law and order by dwelling on lethal violence rather than sex, offering gruesome details about knife injuries but often withholding some of the more intimate details of the pelvic mutilations. He also considers how the Ripper news affected public perceptions of social conditions in Whitechapel.
"An excellent book that offers a new angle on an always fascinating subject" John Davis, Queen's College, Oxford
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780300088724
ISBN 10 0300088728
Title Jack the Ripper and the London Press
Author L Curtis Jr
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Hardback
Publisher Yale University Press
Year published 2001-12-11
Number of pages 368
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.