Ripper Quotes

“on without anesthesia. In a letter he describes: “I suffered agonies, as they related all to me, and did violence to myself in keeping to my seat. I could scarcely bear it.” Surgery on the penis, the rectum or the anus would have been a terrifying torture, especially if the patient was a five-year-old foreigner who couldn’t have possessed the coping skills, the insight or perhaps sufficient fluency in English to understand what was happening to him. It’s awful to consider what he might have imagined when a nurse changed his dressings, administered his medicines or appeared at his bedside with a supply of leeches if he had an inflammation believed to be due to an excess of blood. The nurse may have had a sweet bedside manner. She may have been strict and humorless. A typical requirement in those days was that she was single or widowed, ensuring that all her time could be devoted to the hospital. Nurses were underpaid. They worked long, grueling hours and were exposed to extraordinarily unpleasant conditions”
― Patricia Cornwell, Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert

“Legend has it that Walter was taking a walk with his father one day and passed by a church where Oswald directed his young son’s attention to a memorial. “There’s a name you will never remember,” Oswald commented as he kept walking. Walter paused to read:”
― Patricia Cornwell, Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert

“Even though the Ripper was presumed dead by 1896, according to Chief Constable Melville Macnaghten, the letter I just”
― Patricia Cornwell, Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert

“A search through Whistler’s correspondence, now online at the University of Glasgow, paints a portrait of a relationship that at times was volatile, with Sickert swinging from sycophantic to offended and defensive. Whistler’s”
― Patricia Cornwell, Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert

“the famous American actor Richard Mansfield”
― Patricia Cornwell, Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert