London is full of remarkable curiosities. You can explore it endlessly, walking through it in all directions and each time following a different idea or theme. However, the most unusual thing I have discovered so far is connected with the remains of Jeremy Bentham – or rather with what he decided should happen to his body after his death.
University College London, The Student Centre
Jeremy Bentham: philosopher of happiness and reform
Bentham (1748–1832) was a British philosopher, lawyer and social reformer, best known as the founder of utilitarianism. He believed that the value of human actions should be measured by how much happiness they bring to the greatest number of people. Although he studied law at Oxford, he was highly critical of the British legal system, which he considered inefficient and unjust. Instead of practising law, he devoted his life to writing and promoting social and legal reforms, including prison reform, freedom of expression, animal welfare and greater equality.
A radical wish
Bentham decided that his body should not be buried in the ground or placed in a crypt. Instead, he ordered that it should be dissected for scientific purposes and then preserved. Afterwards, his body was to be dressed in his own clothes and seated on a chair, so that after death he could continue to ‘take part’ in intellectual life.
The auto-icon
Today, his so-called ‘auto-icon’ consists of Bentham’s original skeleton, dressed in his own clothing, as well as a wax head. The real head, which was badly preserved, looked too disturbing and is therefore kept separately. The entire figure can be seen at University College London, displayed in a special glass case.
Myth and ritual
Interestingly, the auto-icon is not only a museum exhibit. According to legend, and in line with Bentham’s wishes, it regularly ‘attends’ official academic events. It is said to be placed at meetings of the university council, and the minutes jokingly record Bentham as present – usually with the note ‘absent, but recorded’.
The auto-icon of Jeremy Bentham at UCL
A symbolic appearance
There is, however, some truth behind this story. One of the most famous cases took place in 2013, when the auto-icon was actually brought to a final council meeting attended by the outgoing provost, Malcolm Grant. This gesture was a symbolic reference to the long-standing myth and confirmed Bentham’s lasting role in the culture of the university.
Between philosophy and the macabre
And so, the man who believed that human actions should be judged by the happiness they create has given London one of its most unusual attractions – balancing somewhere between seriousness and a touch of the macabre.
London is enchanting. I step out upon a tawny coloured magic carpet, it seems, and get carried into beauty without raising a finger.
Virginia Woolf Diary, 26 May 1924
Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury: 46 Gordon Square and 29 Fitzroy Square
Walking through Bloomsbury today, it is easy to see calm squares, elegant terraces, and university buildings. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, this part of London represented something far more radical. For Virginia Woolf, moving here meant leaving behind the strict world of her upbringing and beginning a new life shaped by work, independence, and conversation.
Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London
Virginia grew up at Hyde Park Gate in Kensington, a respectable address that offered comfort but also imposed control. Family life there followed fixed rules, especially for women, and daily routines were shaped by duty and supervision. After the deaths of her parents, the house became emotionally heavy, filled with mourning and constant concern about Virginia’s health. Although she longed to return to books and writing, decisions about her life were often made by others. Over time, Hyde Park Gate came to represent a closed and restrictive world from which she needed to escape.
That escape began with Bloomsbury.
In the winter months preceding Leslie’s death, the decision had been taken for the Stephens to sell the gloomy house in Hyde Park Gate with all its associations and move to a Georgian terraced house in the less reputable but cheaper neighbourhood of Bloomsbury. Vanessa oversaw the move to 46 Gordon Square that October, while Virginia was staying with her Aunt Caroline Emelia Stephen at Cambridge, then with the Vaughan family at Giggleswick Hall, in Yorkshire. […] It was light and airy, clear from clutter, with a view across the trees in the square. […] There was an L-shaped sitting room on the first floor and Vanessa and Virginia had a study, with Thoby, who had just begun reading for the bar, settled on the ground floor. Virginia’s was equipped with a new sofa and desk, ready for her return. […] Dr Savage was concerned that Virginia should not return to London too soon, but the sisters overruled him and when Virginia arrived that November, she found the house ‘the most beautiful, the most exciting, the most romantic place in the world’. […] For the first time, paradoxically significant in preserving her freedom, Virginia had a lock on her bedroom door.
Amy Licence, Living in Squares, Loving in Triangles: The Lives and Loves of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group
Gordon Square: light, freedom, and work begins (1905–1907)
Although the Stephen siblings moved into Gordon Square in October 1904, Virginia did not join them immediately. After her father’s death earlier that year, she suffered a serious mental breakdown and, on medical advice, was kept away from London. Only in early 1905 was she considered well enough to return and begin her life in Bloomsbury.
Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London
Once settled at Gordon Square, Virginia lived with her sister Vanessa and her brothers Thoby and Adrian. For Virginia, the most important change was having a space of her own. For the first time in her life, she had rooms arranged entirely for reading and writing. From her upper-floor rooms, she looked out over the trees of the square, a view that became closely connected with her sense of freedom and creative possibility.
This new setting made sustained work possible. During her time at Gordon Square, Virginia began publishing regularly as a literary reviewer, especially for The Guardian. Writing reviews provided both income and discipline, helping her develop confidence and a professional identity. At the same time, she experimented with fiction, producing early short stories that explored the contrast between the respectable world she had left behind and the freer atmosphere of Bloomsbury.
Alongside journalism, Virginia also taught at Morley College for working men and women. She lectured on books, art, and history, gaining experience in explaining ideas clearly and addressing audiences beyond her own social circle. Although the work was demanding, it gave structure to her days and broadened her understanding of readers and listeners.
46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London
Daily life at Gordon Square supported this working rhythm. The siblings deliberately abandoned many social conventions they had grown up with. Formal visiting rituals disappeared, and life was organised around reading, writing, and discussion rather than obligation. Virginia also began walking alone through London, exploring streets, bookshops, galleries, lectures, and concerts. These walks sharpened her attention to everyday urban life and later became an important element of her writing.
46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London – where Virginia Woolf lived from 1905 to 1907
It was also at Gordon Square that the Bloomsbury Group began to take shape. Thoby Stephen, missing the intensity of Cambridge conversations, invited his friends to the house on Thursday evenings. These informal gatherings gradually became a regular meeting place for young writers and thinkers. Discussion focused on literature, philosophy, and ethical questions rather than social display. When artists later joined through Vanessa’s circle, Bloomsbury expanded beyond literature into visual art and design.
Bloomsbury Group plaque, Gordon Square, London – a place central to the formation of the Bloomsbury Group.
The Gordon Square years were short but intense. In the autumn of 1906, the siblings travelled to Greece. Shortly after returning to London, Thoby fell ill and died on 20 November 1906. Only two days later, Vanessa accepted Clive Bell’s marriage proposal. The household that had supported shared beginnings and collective work could no longer remain unchanged.
Fitzroy Square: independence, pressure, and the first novel (1907–1911)
In March 1907, Virginia and her younger brother Adrian moved to 29 Fitzroy Square, still within Bloomsbury but deliberately separate from Gordon Square. This move marked a new stage. Virginia was no longer part of a sibling household; she was now shaping her life more independently, both personally and professionally.
Fitzroy Square, Bloomsbury, London – the house where Virginia Woolf lived from 1907 to 1911
Fitzroy Square was louder and less fashionable than Gordon Square. The house required improvements, and money was often tight. Yet the move brought greater autonomy. Virginia ran her own household and had full control over her working space, occupying an entire floor filled with books, papers, and furniture chosen according to her own taste. The building itself had a literary past, having previously been home to George Bernard Shaw before his marriage.
George Bernard Shaw plaque, 29 Fitzroy Square, Bloomsbury, London
Work continued steadily. During her years at Fitzroy Square, Virginia wrote regularly for The Times Literary Supplement while continuing her reviewing work elsewhere. Journalism remained central to her professional life, providing income and sharpening her critical voice. At the same time, she began serious work on her first novel, initially titled Melymbrosia, later published as The Voyage Out. This period marked her transition from reviewer to novelist.
Life at Fitzroy Square was not easy. Noise, financial pressure, and emotional strain were constant, especially after the loss of her brother and changes in her relationship with Vanessa. Yet Virginia remained productive. Writing became both a discipline and a form of stability, giving shape to her days and direction to her thoughts.
Virginia lived at Fitzroy Square until October 1911, when the lease ended. By then, she had established herself as a working writer and was ready to move on again, both physically and creatively.
Bloomsbury as a place of work and ideas
Seen together, Gordon Square and Fitzroy Square show how closely Virginia Woolf’s life and work were tied to the places she lived. Gordon Square made writing possible by offering light, space, and intellectual companionship. Fitzroy Square tested her independence and pushed her towards larger ambitions, including her first novel. These London addresses were not simply backdrops to her life but active working environments that shaped her habits, her discipline, and her sense of what it meant to be a writer.
29 Fitzroy Square, Bloomsbury, London – Virginia Woolf’s home from 1907 to 1911
Walking through Bloomsbury
All photographs by the author.
This account draws on biographical and historical studies of Virginia Woolf and her circle, particularly those that explore the relationship between place, daily life, and creative work. The books listed below were consulted in shaping this narrative and offer further context for readers who wish to explore Woolf’s London in greater detail.
Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf. Chatto & Windus, 1996.
Macaskill, Hilary. Virginia Woolf at Home. Pimpernel Press, 2019.
Licence, Amy. Living in Squares, Loving in Triangles: The Lives and Loves of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group. Amberley, 20215
Hill-Miller, Katherine C. From the Lighthouse to Monk’s House: A Guide to Virginia Woolf’s Literary Landscapes. Duckworth, 2001.
Woolf, Virginia. A Writer’s Diary. Delphi Classics, 2017.
The Epiphany, celebrated a few days ago, is, for me, a day naturally linked to James Joyce’s short story The Dead, as its action takes place on 6 January. The same date, however, also appears in a very different part of literary culture: as the traditional birthday of Sherlock Holmes, one of the most famous characters in world literature.
Baker Street Tube Station, London
Did Arthur Conan Doyle ever state Holmes’s birth date?
The date of the detective’s birth was never clearly given by Arthur Conan Doyle. Even so, for many years, readers around the world have celebrated it on 6 January, treating this date almost as if it were part of the official canon. This shows not only the strength of the character but also the lasting power of literature and the involvement of its readers.
Canonical clues about Sherlock Holmes’s age
Any attempt to work out Holmes’s age must begin with the hints scattered through the canon. The only place where his age is stated directly in the short story His Last Bow. The War Service of Sherlock Holmes. In the scene where James Altamont visits Baron von Bork – before the true identity of the American agent working for Germany is revealed – the narrator describes him as
a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with clear-cut features.
Only at the end of the story does it become clear that this description refers to Sherlock Holmes. This makes it possible to fix his age in 1914 and, as a result, to place his year of birth around 1854.
The Sherlock Holmes Museum, London
Other works do not give Holmes’s age directly. Instead, they present him as a fully mature man with a strong reputation and long professional experience, which supports this calculation.
Why 6 January is celebrated as Holmes’s birthday
Doyle never gave the day or month of Holmes’s birth. This gap was filled by readers and scholars known as Sherlockians. They suggested 6 January as a symbolic date, based not on a direct statement in the text but on interpretation. This date falls on Epiphany, the feast of revelation, when hidden truths are made known.
The idea of Epiphany fits Holmes particularly well. The detective repeatedly brings hidden facts into the open, finds meaning in confusing details, and allows reason to win over illusion. In this sense, 6 January is not a historical fact but a meaningful symbol – the ‘birth’ of a mind devoted to discovering the truth.
Over time, this interpretation became widely accepted and turned into a tradition. 6 January 1854 is now treated as an unofficial but widely recognised ‘fan canon’. It is a good example of how readers interact with a text: when the author leaves a gap, readers create a clear and meaningful explanation.
From fiction to cultural tradition
As a result, Sherlock Holmes, a fictional character, has gained an almost real biography, complete with a specific birth date that is still celebrated today. This shows that great literature does not end on the final page, but continues to live in reading, discussion and imagination.
The Sherlock Holmes Museum, London
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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is among the most influential Christmas stories in English literature, combining social criticism with a tale of moral transformation. The novella tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old man visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his former partner and three spirits – Past, Present, and Yet to Come – who guide him toward compassion and generosity.
Bah, said Scrooge, Humbug.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens Museum in London
One of the most important places on London’s literary map is the Charles Dickens Museum, located at 48 Doughty Street. This was the home of Charles Dickens from 1837 to 1839, at the very beginning of his extraordinary literary career. While living here, Dickens worked on novels such as ‘Oliver Twist’ and ‘Nicholas Nickleby’.
Charles Dickens Museum
Today, the museum allows visitors to step into Dickens’s private world. Its preserved rooms reveal his study, personal possessions, and the atmosphere of the Victorian era, offering a vivid sense of how the writer lived and worked.
Charles Dickens Museum
A Christmas Eve that changes everything
However, when Dickens wrote his most famous Christmas story, ‘A Christmas Carol’, he no longer lived at Doughty Street. In 1843, his home was 1 Devonshire Terrace, near Regent’s Park. It was here that ‘A Christmas Carol’ was written – astonishingly, in just a few weeks and with intense emotional energy.
Charles Dickens Museum
Dickens was deeply affected by the social problems of London at the time: the poverty of children, sharp class divisions, and the lack of compassion shown by the wealthy toward the poor. He believed that a powerful story could move people’s hearts more quickly and more deeply than political articles or essays. This belief gave rise to the unforgettable tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and his moral transformation.
Charles Dickens Museum
‘A Christmas Carol’ was first published on 19 December 1843, and its impact was immediate: the initial 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve, an extraordinary success. Dickens’s publishers, Chapman and Hall, rushed to produce second and third printings before the New Year. The story quickly became a Christmas classic and has remained an essential part of the season ever since.
Charles Dickens Museum
In 1864, the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray praised the book, calling it:
a national benefit to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness.
The illustrations associated with the original 1843 edition, created by John Leech, depict how Victorian readers first encountered the story, helping to shape the visual imagination of ‘A Christmas Carol’ that still influences how we picture it today.
I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
To fully appreciate the story behind A Christmas Carol, visit the Charles Dickens Museum and uncover the origins of Dickens’s timeless Christmas tale – and much more.
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While visiting London recently, I couldn’t resist returning to this place. I sat on the steps across the street and gazed at the stately townhouse where Virginia Woolf was born on January 25, 1882, as Adeline Virginia Stephen, the youngest daughter of the successful author and critic Sir Leslie Stephen. With a sense of emotion, I recalled the memories Woolf shares in her autobiographical essays, Moments of Being.
The house was dark because the street was so narrow that one could see Mrs Redgrave washing her neck in her bedroom across the way; also because my mother who had been brought up in the Watts-Venedan-Little Holland House tradition had covered the furniture in red velvet and painted the woodwork black with thin gold lines upon it. The house was also completely quiet. Save for an occasional hansom or butcher’s cart nothing ever passed the door. One heard footsteps tapping down the street before we saw a top hat or a bonnet; one almost always knew who it was that passed; it might be Sir Arthur Clay; the Muir Mackenzies or the white-nosed Miss or the red-nosed Mrs Redgrave. Here then seventeen or eighteen people lived in small bedrooms with one bathroom and three water-closets between them.
Here the four of us were born; here my grandmother died; here my mother died; here my father died; here Stella became engaged to Jack Hills and two doors further down the street after three months of marriage she died too. When I look back upon that house it seems to me so crowded with scenes of family life, grotesque, comic and tragic; with the violent emotions of youth, revolt, despair, intoxicating happiness, immense boredom, with parties of the famous and the dull; with rages again, George and Gerald; with love scenes with Jack Hills; with passionate affection for my father alternating with passionate hatred of him, all tingling and vibrating in an atmosphere of youthful bewilderment and curiosity that I feel suffocated by the recollection. The place seemed tangled and matted with emotion. I could write the history of every mark and scratch in my room, I wrote later. The walls and the rooms had in sober truth been built to our shape. We had permeated the whole vast fabric it has since been made into an hotel with our family history. It seemed as if the house and the family which had lived in it, thrown together as they were by so many deaths, so many emotions, so many traditions, must endure for ever. And then suddenly in one night both vanished.
Virginia Woolf, Moments of Being – Autobiographical Essays
13 Kensington Square
In the second half of the nineteenth century, London saw the first academic institutions open their doors to women. One of the most important was the Ladies’ Department of King’s College London, which was established in 1885 at 13 Kensington Square. It provided women the opportunity to study subjects that had long been reserved almost entirely for men.
Inside this townhouse, students attended lectures in history, literature, classical and modern languages, philosophy, and the sciences. The Department had academic standing while retaining an intimate character, with many lessons conducted in small groups. From the 1890s, Lilian Faithfull, a teacher and social reformer, played a leading role in advancing women’s education. Among the tutors were outstanding classicists such as Clara Pater and Janet Case, both of whom strongly influenced the intellectual growth of future writers and artists.
It was here, between 1897 and 1902, that Virginia Stephen – later known as Virginia Woolf – studied history, Greek, Latin and German. She also took private Greek lessons with Janet Case. Her elder sister, the painter Vanessa Stephen (later Vanessa Bell), also studied at the Department. For both sisters, Kensington Square offered their first taste of academic life. Though limited by the restrictions placed on women at the time, the experience encouraged their later self-education and creativity.
Today, the building at 13 Kensington Square is called St James’ House and serves as office space. It remains an important landmark in the history of women’s education in Britain. Virginia Woolf is remembered at King’s College London, where she is named among its distinguished former students, and one of the university buildings now carries her name (22 Kingsway, London).
Glasnevin Cemetery is Dublin’s national necropolis and one of the city’s most important literary landscapes. It is a place where memory, history, and everyday life meet – right beside The Gravediggers pub.
Established in 1832, Glasnevin is the final resting place of over a million people, including many important cultural and political figures from Ireland. It is therefore not only a burial ground, but also a place of national memory.
Glasnevin Cemetery also has personal meaning in the life of James Joyce. His parents, John Stanislaus Joyce and Mary Jane ‘May’ Joyce, are buried there, which adds a more intimate, family dimension to the writer’s connection with the place and the city.
The Gravediggers pub – history at the gates of Glasnevin Cemetery
Right next to one of the cemetery gates is a pub with the charming name ‘The Gravediggers’, founded by John Kavanagh in 1833. Kavanagh had a knack for business, because not only did he open a bar that attracted mourners and served the gravediggers who worked at the cemetery, but he also bought the land around it to prevent any potential competition in the immediate vicinity.
The pub is named after the cemetery workers who were so keen to use its services. So keen that the main gate was eventually moved to another location, and a special window was made in the pub’s wall through which gravediggers could order beer by knocking on it with a shovel. Today, the pub’s guests are mostly tourists visiting the cemetery.
The Gravediggers pub
Between literature and everyday life
However, James Joyce does not mention The Gravediggers in his famous novel Ulysses although one of the characteristic scenes – the funeral of Paddy Dignam (Episode 6, Hades) – takes place in Glasnevin Cemetery.
The O’Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him. (…)
Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland’s hearts and hands. (…)
How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed. As you are now so once were we. (…)
The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again. Enough of this place. (…)
Thank you. How grand we are this morning!
James Joyce, Ulysses
In the pub itself, part of the action of the novel Dublinesque by the Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas takes place.
The story follows Samuel Riba, a retired Spanish publisher who loves books and worries about the decline of the literary world. He travels to Dublin with a few friends to hold a mock funeral for the ‘Gutenberg era’ – the age of printed books – inspired by Ulysses and the work of James Joyce.
While in Dublin, they visit real places linked to Ulysses, including ‘The Gravediggers’. Vila-Matas uses the pub as both a real setting and a symbol – a place between life and death, past and present – which suits a story about endings: of people, books, and times gone by.
15 Usher’s Island in Dublin, Ireland, is a classic Georgian townhouse overlooking the River Liffey. It’s an important part of literary history. In the late 1800s, the house was home to the grand-aunts of writer James Joyce, who also ran a music school there. Their home later became the setting for one of Joyce’s most famous stories, The Dead, the last one in his collection, Dubliners.
Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat when the wheezy hall-door bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest. It was always a great affair, the Misses Morkan’s annual dance. Everybody who knew them came to it, members of the family, old friends of the family, the members of Julia Morkan’s choir, any of Kate Morkan’s pupils that were grown up enough, and even some of Mary Jane’s pupils too.
The Dead takes place during a Christmas party at 15 Usher’s Island. The main characters, Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta, attend the yearly dinner held by Gabriel’s aunts. The evening features music and a discussion on politics. As they prepare to leave, Gabriel sees Gretta standing quietly on the stairs, deep in thought. A song from the party has brought back memories of her youth…
This story made the house a well-known literary location, though in later years it was often empty or used by squatters.
In 1987, director John Huston used the house’s exterior in his film version of The Dead.
A scene from John Huston’s film The Dead
A brief revival of Joyce’s world…
Around 2000, Brendan Kilty, a barrister and passionate Joycean, purchased 15 Usher’s Island and lovingly restored the house as a tribute to James Joyce’s The Dead. His vision was to revive the spirit of the story’s famous dinner scene, hosting gatherings and events that celebrated Dublin’s literary heritage. For a time, the house stood as a living museum of Joyce’s world – filled with music, conversation, and echoes of the past. However, financial difficulties eventually forced Kilty into bankruptcy in 2012, and the house was sold by receivers in 2017.
The drawing-room was filled with so many guests that the young men, unable to find chairs, had to stand about in groups near the piano. The middle of the room was occupied by a large square piano and a tall mirror above the mantelpiece reflected the gas flames, making the room bright and warm.
…then left waiting for its future
For many people in Dublin, the house still feels like a part of Joyce’s world. When there were plans to turn it into a tourist hostel, writer Colm Tóibín and others objected, saying it was too important culturally. Unfortunately, their appeal didn’t succeed.
Whatever the future holds for 15 Usher’s Island, The Dead has left its mark here. The house now faces a bridge named after Joyce, linking Usher’s Island with Blackhall Place on the north side of the river. The bridge opened on Bloomsday in 2003.
Inspired by a winter read, I decided to spend the summer walking through the streets of London’s East End, which in the late 19th century became the stage for one of the darkest stories of modern times.
Who were ‘The Five’? The real women behind the Jack the Ripper murders
In the summer and autumn of 1888, five women lost their lives in the alleys of Whitechapel: Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. They all struggled with poverty, homelessness and the lack of support in a world that left no room for weakness. Their deaths were violent and cruel, but the memory of them was quickly overshadowed by the story of the man who killed them.
The Victorian press had no doubts: their fates were explained by what was seen as an ‘immoral lifestyle’. Selling sex on the streets became an easy label that required neither nuance nor empathy. In truth, only two of the women may have turned to sex work at times. The others were simply trying to survive in a world where hunger and homelessness were far greater threats than any personal weakness. The false image created by newspapers meant that, for decades, the women’s identities were reduced to a stereotype, their lives hidden beneath the myth of their killer.
Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five: shifting the focus from killer to victims
Hallie Rubenhold challenges this myth in her book The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. Instead of chasing the murderer, as countless writers have done for over a century, she focuses on the victims themselves – their childhoods, relationships, struggles and daily fight to stay alive in poverty. Rubenhold brings them out of the shadows, restoring the dignity denied to them by their contemporaries and by history. It is both an act of remembrance and a gesture of justice – giving back voices to women who were, for so long, treated only as the backdrop to the legend of a ‘dark genius of evil’.
It was the sensational newspapers of the 19th century – the so-called ‘penny press’ – that built the legend of Jack the Ripper. Their pages were filled with loud headlines, supposed letters from the killer, rumours and gossip. Fear and curiosity sold far better than the quiet truth about the lives of poor women in the East End. As a result, it was he, not his victims, who became the focus of public imagination.
Mitre Square – site of Catherine Eddowes’ murder, 30 September 1888.
Jack the Ripper in popular culture: from true crime to tourism
Over the years, the Ripper moved beyond criminal history and entered popular culture. His shadow hangs not only over books and films but also, sometimes in grotesque ways, over everyday life. London pubs and restaurants have used his name – for example, the fish-and-chip shop Jack the Chipper, the historic pub The Ten Bells (once renamed Jack the Ripper), or the cocktail bar Ripper & Co in Portsmouth. Tourist marketing and morbid curiosity blend with a dark legacy, transforming tragedy into a decorative spectacle. A story that should serve as a warning has become an ornament.
Jack the Chipper in Whitechapel – a modern reminder of how the Ripper legend became part of London’s tourist landscape
Is the Jack the Ripper mystery finally solved?
From time to time, attempts are made to solve the mystery. Modern DNA analysis has suggested that the killer may have been Aaron Kosminski, a Polish Jew and barber from the East End, already suspected during the original investigation. Yet the lack of clear proof and doubts about the methods used mean that his name remains only a theory. Perhaps it is exactly this uncertainty that keeps the legend alive. Today, the Ripper is more of a symbol than a real person of flesh and blood – and his name, turned into a pop culture icon, has sadly drawn attention away from the women whose lives ended in the dark streets of Whitechapel.
All photographs by the author.
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While reading So it goes. Travels in the Aran Isles, Xian and places between by Nicolas Bouvier, I recall my visit to Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands on the West coast of Ireland.
And while life on the island may seem blissful and idyllic in the innocent July weather, the truth that spoke to me most eloquently was the one I saw hauntingly enshrined in this tree.
Bouvier expresses this in the following words:
A wind which had picked up from Newfoundland would not let itself be fooled by a cliff, however imposing. For the wind it was less an obstacle than a riddle to which it had long known the answer. This is how it works: at the foot of the cliff it forms a cushion of air; from this springboard it rises up and starts again. When, having made the climb, it reaches the top and hurtles down the other slope in almighty gusts which flatten broom and thistles, it better not to stand in its way. A few meters from the fort, one of these gusts hit me, throwing me to the ground and tossing me into the stones and brambles like yesterday’s newspaper. I saw my heavy camera bag bounding ahead to the green meadows, scattering the rabbits, and found shelter in a corner of the fort, hands and nose bleeding from scratches.
I asked Hernon what people did here at this time of year.
“After the January storms, if the west wind sets in, they do nothing. The waves are too strong for coastal fishing. (…) The walls around the kitchen gardens get repaired but the wind’s too strong to spread seaweed on the meadows, it blows over the stone walls and then you have to start all over again. The men do odd jobs around the house, and drink; the women knit for the summer tourist trade. And not just any old knitting: each of the island villages, even if there are only four or five houses, has its pattern, like a brand. In the old days it was a way to identify the drowned who washed up on shore: crabs and fish don’t eat wool. Today it’s only the drunk who drown; they have their separate corner in the cemetery”.
/Nicolas Bouvier, So it goes. Travels in the Aran Isles, Xian and places between/
The same rugged beauty and harsh conditions that still define the Aran Islands are captured in the film Man of Aran (1934), directed by Robert J. Flaherty. Set mainly on Inis Mór, it shows how islanders struggled to survive in a rocky, wind-swept landscape, creating soil from sand and seaweed and fishing from fragile currach boats on the rough Atlantic. Although some scenes were staged, the film conveys the power of nature and the resilience needed to live in such a demanding environment.
All photographs by the author.
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