LEWIS CARROLL WAS JACK THE RIPPER

Jack the Ripper was a notorious serial killer in the 1800s who committed a series of gruesome murders that were never solved.  His victims were all prostitutes who worked in the Whitechapel district of London, which is why the murders became known as the Whitechapel murders.  Jack the Ripper was suspected of having committed eleven killings between 1888 and 1891, of which five are considered ‘canonical’ Ripper victims, meaning they were definitely attributed to him.  The name Jack the Ripper came from a series of letters that were sent to the Central News Agency supposedly by the killer, mocking the police for their inability to catch him.   Jack the Ripper is still considered one of the worst serial killers in history due to the brutal nature of his murders.  There have been speculations over the years about who could have been the killer, with several names put forward as possible suspects. 

In 1996, Richard Wallace wrote a book, Jack the Ripper, Light-Hearted Friend, in which he proposed Lewis Carroll as Jack the Ripper.  His theory was thoroughly mocked and outrightly dismissed by people who called themselves experts on Jack the Ripper.  Even though today Lewis Carroll’s name is included in the list of possible suspects, he has always been considered among the least likely to have been Jack the Ripper.  This just tells me that the people who consider themselves ‘experts’ have no idea what they are talking about.  If they were indeed experts, then Lewis Carroll would have been considered among the most likely, if not the actual, culprit in the Jack the Ripper murders.  Once we look at the evidence, it should be obvious that Lewis Carroll was Jack the Ripper, and any reasonable person should consider the case finally closed.

Let’s look at the evidence.

1. Lewis Carroll identified himself as Jack (aka the Knave) in Alice in Wonderland

When I first encountered the idea that Lewis Carroll was Jack the Ripper, I dismissed it outright, as most people do.  But gradually, as I started entertaining the possibility, I wondered to myself, why Jack?  Where did this name come from?  And then it hit me.  Did you know that in a pack of cards, the ‘J’ stands for Jack?  I didn’t know this until quite recently.  The J, which is also known as the Knave, actually stands for Jack.  The K stands for King, the Q for Queen, and the J for Jack.  In Alice in Wonderland, the main characters are derived from characters in a pack of cards.  There’s the Queen of Hearts, the King of Hearts and the Knave of Hearts.  The Knave is the one who undergoes a trial in the last chapter of Alice in Wonderland for stealing the tarts that the Queen of Hearts had baked.  For those who know the real story of Lewis Carroll, we know that something happened to cause a rupture in his relationship with the Liddell family.  If you read the first part of this series, then you know that the rupture was most likely caused by Carroll being accused of molesting the sisters.  This is what he is referring to when he talks about a trial in which the Knave is accused of stealing the tarts.  By identifying himself as the Knave, Lewis Carroll is telling us that he is Jack.  This is where the name Jack comes from.  This, to me, is the smoking gun.

2. Lewis Carroll alludes to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in his diaries

In November 1888, at the height of the Jack the Ripper murders, Lewis Carroll refers to himself as Dr Jekyll in his diary.  Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a Gothic horror novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1886.  It explores the duality of human nature through the story of Dr Henry Jekyll, a respected London physician who creates a potion to separate his good and evil impulses. The result is Edward Hyde, a smaller, younger, and physically repulsive man who embodies Jekyll’s repressed vices and violent tendencies.  As Jekyll uses the potion more frequently, Hyde grows stronger and increasingly uncontrollable. Jekyll loses the ability to transform back at will, and Hyde begins appearing involuntarily. The novella is narrated through the perspective of Gabriel John Utterson, Jekyll’s lawyer and friend, who investigates the mysterious connection between Jekyll and the brutal crimes committed by Hyde. The story culminates in Jekyll’s desperate attempt to reclaim control, ultimately failing as he becomes permanently trapped as Mr Hyde.

The phrase “Jekyll and Hyde” has since entered the common language to describe someone with a sharply contrasting public and private persona—respectable outwardly, yet cruel or immoral in private.  So why would Lewis Carroll refer to himself as Dr Jekyll in his diaries, during the same period when the Whitechapel murders were taking place in London?  It’s obvious.  It’s because his alter ego, Jack, was the one carrying out the gruesome murders.

3. Lewis Carroll’s love of letter writing and ability to change his handwriting at will

Lewis Carroll loved writing letters.  He had hundreds of child-friends, to whom he wrote thousands of letters during his lifetime.  He kept a meticulous register of all the letters he wrote, estimated to have been 98,721 letters over 37 years.  This love of letter writing is something he shared with Jack the Ripper. 

The Jack the Ripper letters were sent to various recipients, primarily in London:

• Central News Agency – The infamous Dear Boss letter (25 September 1888) and the Saucy Jacky postcard (1 October 1888) were both addressed to this news agency, located in London’s City district. 
• Scotland Yard and Police Officials – A significant portion (67%) of the hundreds of Ripper letters were sent to law enforcement, including Scotland Yard, Sir Charles Warren (head of the Metropolitan Police), and Inspector Abberline. 
• George Lusk – Chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received the From Hell letter (16 October 1888), which contained a human kidney. 
• Newspapers and the Public – Some letters were sent to other news outlets, private firms, schools, or private citizens, while others had unknown recipients. 

If Lewis Carroll was indeed Jack the Ripper, then it’s not surprising that he would send hundreds of letters to gain notoriety.

Lewis Carroll also had an uncanny ability to change his handwriting at will.  For this, we need look no further than the handwritten copy of Alice’s Adventures Underground, which he gave as a gift to Alice Liddell.  The entire book was written in a childlike handwriting, which was not Lewis Carroll’s normal handwriting.  The fact that he could accomplish such a feat means that he could have written the Dear Boss letter.  Lewis Carroll alludes to this in the last chapter of Alice in Wonderland, in which a set of verses supposedly written by the Knave is read during the trial.  One of the jurymen asks:

“Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?”

“No, they’re not,” said the White Rabbit, “and that’s the queerest thing about it.” (The jury all looked puzzled.)

“He must have imitated somebody else’s hand,” said the King. (The jury all brightened up again.)

The final clue concerning the letters is found in Lewis Carroll’s habit of underlining certain words for emphasis when writing letters.  We can see this in the letter he wrote to Alice Liddell after he borrowed her copy of Alice in Wonderland.  In the Dear Boss letter, which is one of the few that were confirmed to be from Jack the Ripper, we see the same habit of underlining certain words for emphasis.

4. Lewis Carroll had a split personality

Lewis Carroll was the pen name for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a lecturer of mathematics and an ordained deacon at Christ Church College, Oxford University.  The interesting thing about Charles Dodgson was that he went to extreme lengths to distance himself from Lewis Carroll.  Letters addressed to Lewis Carroll that came to him would be sent back.  To enforce this separation, Dodgson created a printed document known as the “Stranger Circular”, which he sent to collectors and inquirers.  It stated clearly: 

“Mr Dodgson is so frequently addressed by strangers on the quite unauthorised assumption that he claims or at any rate acknowledges the authorship of books not published under his name, that he has found it necessary to print this, once and for all, as an answer to all such applications. He neither claims nor acknowledges any connection with any pseudonym, or with any book that is not published under his own name.”

This might at first appear as a humorous personality quirk, but I believe it went much deeper.  I believe Lewis Carroll suffered from a split personality, which meant that he could separate his identity as Lewis Carroll from his other identity as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.  In his mind, these were two separate and distinct people.  Once we understand this, it becomes easier to understand why he would take on the identity of Jack the Ripper.  This was another split in his persona that came from an intense desire to commit the crimes that Jack the Ripper committed, which he could not do as either Lewis Carroll or Charles Dodgson.  Jack the Ripper was born for purposes of committing murder, which meant that Charles Dodgson could continue living his normal life without acknowledging his criminal identity, just the same way he tried to live his life without acknowledging his identity as Lewis Carroll.

5. Medical Knowledge

Jack the Ripper was believed to possess medical knowledge because of the way he carried out his murders.  He removed internal organs—such as kidneys and uteruses—from several victims, and the precision and speed of the mutilations suggested familiarity with human anatomy.  However, Dr Thomas Bond, who conducted a detailed post-mortem analysis, concluded the killer had no formal medical or surgical training, noting the ragged, unskilled nature of the cuts—inconsistent with a surgeon or even a butcher.  He believed the killer lacked technical precision, despite knowing organ locations.

While Lewis Carroll obviously did not have medical training, we know that he was interested in vivisection, even writing two influential essays about it: “Some Popular Fallacies About Vivisection” (1875) and “Vivisection as a Sign of the Times” (1875).  This suggests that he studied the subject extensively.  Another clue can be found in the fact that Lewis Carroll had an extensive medical library.  We know this because after his death, his prized Medical Collection was bequeathed to his nephew Bertram James Collingwood, 1871-1934, a physician whose father had died just days before Dodgson.

The above is consistent with Jack the Ripper, who, while not having technical precision, knew where organs were located.

6. Mysterious clergyman who went to look for Mr Lusk

While researching Jack the Ripper, I came across an interesting fact that was reported by one of the witnesses.  Miss Emily Marsh reported encountering a mysterious man dressed in clerical attire on October 15, 1888, at her father’s leather shop on Jubilee Street, Mile End Road, shortly after 1:00 PM. The man inquired about the address of Mr  George Lusk, president of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, and asked to be directed to him.  When Miss Marsh suggested he visit Mr Joseph Aarons, the committee’s treasurer, the man declined, saying he did not wish to go to a pub. She then read aloud from a newspaper article that listed Lusk’s address as Alderney Street, Globe Road, without a house number, which the man then wrote down in his notebook. 

The man was described as about 45 years old, six feet tall, slimly built, with a sallow complexion, a dark beard and moustache, and wore a long black overcoat, a soft felt hat, and a Prussian or clerical collar. He spoke with what Miss Marsh perceived as an Irish brogue.  She and her father, along with a shopboy named James Cormack, gave a detailed description of the man, who left without calling on Lusk.  This encounter occurred one day before Lusk received the infamous “From Hell” letter and a preserved human kidney.  The letter did not have the house number on the address.

We know that Lewis Carroll was six feet tall, slim and had a sallow complexion.  The beard and moustache were obviously a disguise, which Lewis Carroll must have been good at from his photography work (he had all sorts of costumes that his subjects would wear at his studio).  But the most important clue is that the man had a clerical collar.  We know that Lewis Carroll was an ordained deacon and that he used to wear a clerical collar.  This is what one of his child-friends, Princess Alice, said about him:

“As a little girl, I once arrived at a children’s party and saw a pale old clergyman in black clothes. I glumly assumed that he would spoil everything. Yet, the party soon became Mr Dodgson’s party.”

What this means is that the tall clergyman who went to look for Mr Lusk was in fact Lewis Carroll.

7. Lewis Carroll’s frequent trips to London

It has been said that Lewis Carroll could not have been Jack the Ripper because Lewis Carroll was vacationing at Eastbourne at the time.  This overlooks the fact that Lewis Carroll frequently travelled by train to London to meet with publishers, to meet with relatives and to go to the theatre.  We know that he used to make trips to London to attend the theatre even when he was vacationing at Eastbourne.  So, the idea that he could not have committed the murders because he was at Eastbourne is baseless.  London already had a very well-established railway system in the 1800s, so nothing would have been easier than to take the train to London, commit the crimes, then take the train back to Eastbourne.  The distance between London and Eastbourne is around one hour by train, and this was a trip he frequently undertook.  Therefore, this supposed alibi is not an alibi at all.  It would not be the first time that a serial killer travelled to a different town or city to commit a crime.  Many serial killers do this.

8. Lewis Carroll’s hidden sadistic nature

Consider the passage below, which Lewis Carroll wrote to Enid Shawyer, a child-friend, dated April 7, 1891.

“So you think you’ve got the courage to come for a walk by yourself with me? Indeed! Well, I shall come for you on April 31st at 13 o’clock, and first I will take you to the Oxford Zoological Gardens, and put you into a cage of LIONS, and when they’ve had a good feed, I’ll bring you to my rooms, and give a regular beating, with a thick stick, to my new little friend. Then I’ll put you into the coal-hole, and feed you for a week on nothing but bread and water. Then I’ll send you home in a milk-cart, in one of the empty milk-cans.”

Some might say that this is just a humorous letter, but someone else would rightly ask, why would anyone write such a letter to a child?

This is what he wrote to Isa Bowman on September 17, 1893.

“Oh, you naughty, naughty little culprit! If only I could fly to Fulham with a handy little stick (ten feet long and four inches thick is my favourite size) how I would rap your wicked little knuckles. However, there isn’t much harm done, so I will sentence you to a very mild punishment—only one year’s imprisonment. If you’ll just tell the Fulham policeman about it, he’ll manage all the rest for you, and he’ll fit you with a nice pair of handcuffs, and lock you up in a nice cosy dark cell, and feed you on nice dry bread, and delicious cold water.”

Did he love his child-friends, or did he want to imprison them in dungeons and feed them on bread and water? 

The last proof of hidden sadism can be found in his book, Alice in Wonderland.  Have you ever wondered what the chapter about the baby turning into a pig was all about?  I wondered about this for a long time because it didn’t make any sense, and seemed to be an example of the nonsense he was so famous for.  But I discovered that the chapter had a deeper, darker, more sinister meaning.  To understand what the passage was all about, we need to first understand who the duchess was.  The duchess, just like the Queen of Hearts, was Mrs Liddell, a woman Lewis Carroll loathed, which we can tell from how she is portrayed in the book.  What many might not know is that Mrs Liddell lost a baby in infancy in 1863, around the time when the rift with Lewis Carroll occurred.  The chapter about the baby turning into a pig and trotting away was alluding to the fact that Mrs Liddell was such a bad mother that she allowed her child to die due to neglect and mistreatment.

Let’s take a look at a passage from that chapter.

“Oh, don’t bother me,” said the Duchess; “I never could abide figures!” And with that, she began nursing her child again, singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at the end of every line:

“Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes:
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.”

CHORUS
(In which the cook and the baby joined):
“Wow! wow! wow!”

While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so that Alice could hardly hear the words:—

“I speak severely to my boy,
I beat him when he sneezes;
For he can thoroughly enjoy
The pepper when he pleases!”

CHORUS
“Wow! wow! wow!”

“Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!” the Duchess said to Alice, flinging the baby at her as she spoke. “I must go and get ready to play croquet with the Queen,” and she hurried out of the room. The cook threw a frying-pan after her as she went out, but it just missed her.

Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, “just like a star-fish,” thought Alice. The poor little thing was snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it.

As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it (which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself), she carried it out into the open air. “If I don’t take this child away with me,” thought Alice, “they’re sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn’t it be murder to leave it behind?” She said the last words out loud, and the little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time). “Don’t grunt,” said Alice; “that’s not at all a proper way of expressing yourself.”

The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had a very turn-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose; also its eyes were getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did not like the look of the thing at all. “But perhaps it was only sobbing,” she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears.

No, there were no tears. “If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,” said Alice, seriously, “I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Mind now!” The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for some while in silence.

Alice was just beginning to think to herself, “Now, what am I to do with this creature when I get it home?” when it grunted again, so violently that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be no mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it further.

So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood. “If it had grown up,” she said to herself, “it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.” And she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying to herself, “if one only knew the right way to change them—” when she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

Exactly how much did Lewis Carroll hate Mrs Liddell to write such a cruel passage about the child she lost? 

9. Lewis Carroll’s reincarnation as C. S. Lewis

My final submission is going to be controversial for those who don’t believe in reincarnation.  If that is you, you may skip this section altogether. 

C. S. Lewis was born ten months and 15 days after Lewis Carroll’s death, in November 1898.  The two men share several uncanny similarities:

• Both Lewis Carroll and C. S. Lewis studied at Oxford University – one at Christ Church College and the other at Magdalene College.
• C. S. Lewis was a lay theologian of the Anglican church, while Lewis Carroll (Dodgson) was an ordained deacon of the Anglican church.
• Both of them wrote popular children’s fantasy books – the Alice books and The Chronicles of Narnia. 
• They both created fantasy worlds, i.e. Wonderland and Narnia, in which animals could talk to humans.
• In both Wonderland and Narnia, the protagonist is a little girl (Alice and Lucy), and authority figures include an evil woman (the Queen of Hearts and the White Witch)
• C. S. Lewis was born in Ireland, while Lewis Carroll had Irish ancestry through his grandfather and great-grandfather.

You may be asking yourself, so what if C. S. Lewis was Lewis Carroll reborn?  Well, apparently, C. S. Lewis insisted on being called Jack from the age of four and would not answer to any other name.  He used the name Jack for the rest of his life and said it was because he hated his real name (Clive Staples).  Isn’t this just a little bit too much of a coincidence?

Do you agree with me that Lewis Carroll was Jack the Ripper?  Let me know in the comments.