An 1888 Punch cartoon depicting Jack the Ripper as a phantom stalking Whitechapel
"
Jack the Ripper" is the best known
pseudonym given to an unidentified
serial killer active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the
Whitechapel district of
London in 1888. The name originated in
a letter by someone claiming to be the murderer that was disseminated in the media. Attacks ascribed to the Ripper typically involved women prostitutes from the slums whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and extremely disturbing letters from a writer or writers purporting to be the murderer were received by media outlets and
Scotland Yard. Mainly because of the extraordinarily brutal character of the murders, and because of media treatment of the events, the public came increasingly to believe in a single serial killer, Jack the Ripper. Extensive newspaper coverage bestowed widespread and enduring international notoriety on the Ripper. An investigation into a series of brutal
killings in Whitechapel up to 1891 was unable to connect all the killings conclusively to the murders of 1888, but the legend of Jack the Ripper solidified. As the murders were never solved, the legends surrounding them became a combination of genuine historical research, folklore, and
pseudohistory. The term "ripperology" was coined to describe the study and analysis of the Ripper cases. There are over one hundred
theories about the Ripper's identity, and the murders have inspired
multiple works of fiction. (
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