In the autumn of 1888, London women lived under the shadow of the Ripper murders-killings perhaps unmatched in their sadistic brutality.
Sickert & The Ripper Crimes derives from the unsuspected testimony of the woman who had particular reason to fear for her life.
Florence Pash, friend and colleague of the artist Walter Sickert and herself an artist, confided to the author's mother when in her late eighties, a terrible story that she had kept even from those closest to her.
Jean Overton Fuller is known in the field of Ripperology for her book Sickert and the Ripper Crimes. A study of the enormously talented Edwardian painter Walter Richard Sickert, in which, using her artist eye she scrutinises the paintings he produced for clues about the 1888 Ripper murders. Sickert found thrill and inspiration in the music halls, and the murky regions of the demi-monde and its inhabitants. The man was an enigma, his obsession with the Ripper murders, and the atmosphere of impending gory death, with the nudity, garishness, the strong scarlet hues, and the threatening shadows depicted so disturbingly in The Camden Town Murder series of his paintings, have raised questions and suspicion about the nature of Sickert's fascination.
Jean, through her mother, was a contemporary link to these events, and with Sickert and the Ripper Crimes had generated a considerable amount of interest from the public as well from among her fellow writers, such as for instance the American best-selling author Patricia Cornwell and her contribution to the subject with her Portrait of A Killer: Jack The Ripper, Case Closed.
Paul Begg and Adam Wood of Ripperologist had invited Jean Overton Fuller to speak at the 2003 Ripper Conference in Liverpool. Mogg drove from Oxford to Wymington, a small locality in Northamptonshire to collect Jean en route to the Conference. This weekend in August was one of the hottest in the year. After the nightmare journey of the A5 to Liverpool with cars slowly moving head to tail, they were rewarded and arrived at the gigantic and labyrinthine Britannia Adelphi Hotel, a venue specially chosen for this Conference because of its Ripper connection. Jean greatly enjoyed this event and the very good and erudite company of the international fraternity of Ripperologists. The late Jeremy Beadle was the Master of Ceremony and introduced Jean to the audience, and she came alight on stage and spoke entertainingly for about half an hour without notes.
'timely and welcome...remains a curious and important book'
- Paul Begg in Ripperologist, April 2002
*Ripperologist, The Journal of Jack The Ripper, East End and Victorian Studies is available in electronic format, on subscription www.ripperologist.co.uk
