Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert

by Patricia Cornwell

Suffice it to say that since the early days I’ve completely changed my mind. I now believe it is important to consider seemingly outlandish tales that may actually fit with what Sickert spun to at least two individuals who had no connection to each other. Joseph Gorman and Sickert’s artist friend Florence Pash never met. They recounted anecdotes about the Royal Conspiracy that they couldn’t have gotten from each other.

worn. A DNA scientist who accompanied us removed the stain, which supposedly was too contaminated for analysis. Barring an exhumation, tracing Joseph Gorman’s genetic ancestry would be a difficult task. There may never be answers to the questions he raised about his identity. But it was clear when I was with his family that they had no hesitation about using any means possible to “prove” Joseph was Walter Sickert’s son.

The match between the short-edge cuts of these five Sickert/Ripper letters shows they came from the same quire of paper or group of twenty-four sheets. This is extremely compelling. It’s not exactly what some people had in mind when they decided that Bower should be brought in as a devil’s advocate.

As I’ve continued to mention, when I was searching archives for Sickert documents I found hundreds of letters and papers written by him but virtually nothing written to him. Clearly the correspondence once existed. Did letters from friends, family, colleagues and even mentors such as Whistler and Degas mean so little to Sickert that he simply threw them away? Possibly, and it’s also possible he kept his music hall sketches for more than artistic reasons.

Truth is truth, and why are some people still afraid of it? I don’t have a definitive answer but it stands to reason that it might be embarrassing if you’re an art dealer, historian or biographer who claims to be a Sickert expert and yet you somehow missed the rather important detail that his artistic output might have been influenced if not inspired by the appallingly violent crimes he committed.

To this day the thought of Sickert as the Ripper makes a number of people extremely uncomfortable including his heirs, collectors, dealers and those who’ve made a name for themselves teaching about and studying him. It’s as if to suggest such a thing is impolite, and maybe I’m exactly that, because in my world, manners and murder don’t belong in the same conversation. The irony is that Sickert himself talked more openly about the Ripper than those who continue to protect him. He bragged, confabulated, spun wild tales and theories that clearly were inspired by whatever fed his sexually violent fantasies.

I was guilty of an anachronism or two, and yes, typos. Worst of all I fell into the trap of being a bit too adamant. That wasn’t wise, and I won’t make that same mistake again. People don’t appreciate being told what to believe, especially if it’s by an American crime novelist who probably came across as too sure of herself. Even so, the vitriol the first edition of my book inspired upon its initial release in the US and the UK was an ambush I didn’t expect. I never saw it coming and I should have when John Grieve said to me in 2002, “You know you will be hated for this, Patricia.”