{"title":"‘Its West End and Its Whitechapel’: Jack the Ripper and Gothic London in John Francis Brewer’s The Curse upon Mitre Square: A.D. 1530–1888 (1888)","authors":"Ellesse Patterson","doi":"10.3366/gothic.2024.0185","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses the cultural implications of the representation of Jack the Ripper in John Francis Brewer’s novel The Curse upon Mitre Square: A.D. 1530–1888 (1888). By examining how Brewer’s Ripper is positioned as a curse on London itself, this article maps the impact of the killer’s crimes on subsequent depictions of gothic London and its terrors. It further explores how the religious and national tensions surrounding the killer influenced Brewer’s depiction of Jack the Ripper as a British Catholic, contributing to a departure from both earlier portrayals of gothic villains as largely foreign and contemporary speculation that the actual Ripper was Jewish.","PeriodicalId":42443,"journal":{"name":"Gothic Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Gothic Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3366/gothic.2024.0185","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"N/A","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article analyses the cultural implications of the representation of Jack the Ripper in John Francis Brewer’s novel The Curse upon Mitre Square: A.D. 1530–1888 (1888). By examining how Brewer’s Ripper is positioned as a curse on London itself, this article maps the impact of the killer’s crimes on subsequent depictions of gothic London and its terrors. It further explores how the religious and national tensions surrounding the killer influenced Brewer’s depiction of Jack the Ripper as a British Catholic, contributing to a departure from both earlier portrayals of gothic villains as largely foreign and contemporary speculation that the actual Ripper was Jewish.
期刊介绍:
The official journal of the International Gothic Association considers the field of Gothic studies from the eighteenth century to the present day. Gothic Studies opens a forum for dialogue and cultural criticism, and provides a specialist journal for scholars working in a field which is today taught or researched in academic institutions around the globe. The journal invites contributions from scholars working within any period of the Gothic; interdisciplinary scholarship is especially welcome, as are studies of works across the range of media, beyond the written word.