From Hell

From Hell
by Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell
540 pages

"Jack the Ripper", a serial killer who preyed on prostitutes in the Whitechapel district of London between 1888 and 1889, was never conclusively identified.  The mysterious and particularly gruesome nature of his crimes gave birth to a character that has filled the imaginations (and pockets) of true crime authors and conspiracy theorists ever since.  This graphic novel is a piece of historical fiction that not only tells a dark, captivating story, but is also critical of the industry that grows from the ugliest acts of man, while being self-aware enough to admit that it is apart of that same phenomenon.




Alan Moore borrows from established facts and intriguing, albeit conspiratorial speculation, to create a work with themes encompassing the occult, secret societies, and class antagonism in Victorian era England.

This is a good read for anyone with a dark bent when it comes to literary taste.  Though I really enjoyed it,  I felt it was a tad cumbersome; there are a lot of characters that end up being of little significance and it threw my attention off when it came to following the story.  Also, watching prostitutes get drunk and go with strange men into lonely, dirty back alleys got a little tiresome.  We get it: life's hard in the slums of London's east end.  But once this is sufficiently established, further illustrations of depravity lose their impact.  Then again, maybe that's the point.

I plan on rereading this at some point in the future.  And if it's worth a second read, it was, and is, worth a first.