The full collection was published in 1999 by Top Shelf Productions. Set during the Whitechapel murders of the late Victorian era, the novel speculates upon the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper. The novel depicts several true events surrounding the murders, although portions have been fictionalised,...
The full collection was published in 1999 by Top Shelf Productions. Set during the Whitechapel murders of the late Victorian era, the novel speculates upon the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper. The novel depicts several true events surrounding the murders, although portions have been fictionalised, particularly the identity of the killer and the precise nature and circumstances of the murders. The title is taken from the first words of the "From Hell" letter, which some authorities believe was an authentic message sent from the killer in 1888. In 2000, the graphic novel was banned in Australia for several weeks after customs officers seized copies of the seventh issue from a shipment intended for Quality Comics. Moore began developing the plot for From Hell in the late 1980s. Writer Neil Gaiman recalled Moore calling him up to discuss a television documentary he had just seen about Jack the Ripper, and then asking for Gaiman's help tracking down "rare and forgotten biographies of possible Ripper suspects at the British Museum". From Hell takes as its premise Stephen Knight's theory that the Jack the Ripper murders were part of a conspiracy to conceal the birth of an illegitimate royal baby fathered by Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, slightly modified: the involvement of Walter Sickert is reduced, and Knight's allegation that the child's mother was a Catholic has been dropped. The series was published in ten volumes between 1991 and 1996, and an appendix, From Hell: The Dance of the Gull-catchers, was published in 1998. The entire series was collected in a trade paperback and published by Eddie Campbell Comics in 1999; trade paperback and hardcover versions were published by Top Shelf Productions in the United States and Knockabout Comics in the UK. The prince's daughter is taken to Annie's parents by the artist Walter Sickert, a friend of Eddy's who had accompanied him on his trips to the East End. Sickert reluctantly leaves the child with Annie's parents. The potentially scandalous matter is resolved, until a group of prostitutes — Annie's friends Mary Kelly, Polly Nichols, Anne Chapman, and Liz Stride — who are aware of the illegitimate child and its royal connections, attempt to blackmail Sickert to pay off a gang of thugs who are threatening them. After Queen Victoria learns of the blackmail attempt, Gull is once again enlisted, this time to silence the group of women who are threatening the crown. The police are complicit in the crimes — they are granted prior knowledge of Gull's intentions, and are adjured not to interfere until the plot is completed. Gull, a high-ranking Freemason, begins a campaign of violence against the four women in Whitechapel, brutally murdering them with the aid of a carriage driver, John Netley.