The pages of The Diary of Jack the Ripper reveal the unimaginable - that over a century ago, the legendary serial killer at work in London's Whitechapel kept a record of his bestial mutilations of women. The writer of the horrific journal is James Maybrick, a depraved drug-taking, womanising, 49-year-old Liverpool cotton merchant with a history of domestic violence. In this analysis of his diary, investigative author Shirley Harrison explains all about the origins of the text, the rigorous scientific analysis it has endured and reveals startling new information about Maybrick's shadowy background. All this combines with a chilling confession scratched into a watch, 'I am Jack. J Maybrick,' provide powerful justification that Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. The diary itself is reproduced in full, so that you too can judge whether these are the deeply distributing words of Jack the Ripper himself, reaching out from across the abyss of more than a century.

Shirley Harrison began broadcasting with Uncle Mac on Children's Hour in 1954. She wrote for most national magazines and newspapers, turning to non-fiction after the death of her husband in 1982. Shirley divides her time between Borough High Street, London and Normandy. She has four grown up children and is now, coincidentally, married to Duncan Field whose forbears were undertakers in Whitechapel at the time of Jack the Ripper! Her biography of Sylvia Pankhurst, will be published in the Spring.