The Last Victim: The Extraordinary Life of Florence Maybrick, the Wife of Jack the Ripper

by Anne E. Graham, Carol Emmas

August, 1889. Twenty-seven-year-old Florence Maybrick is sentenced to death for poisoning her husband, Liverpool cotton broker James Maybrick, in one of the most infamous trials in British legal history. But what was the truth behind Maybrick¹s death? And how was it connected to a spate of terrible murders in London¹s East End? Florence¹s turbulent life ‹ her marriage to a man widely believed to be the most notorious serial killer of all time, her sensational trial and imprisonment ‹ is the stuff of high drama. Revealing startling new evidence that puts a dramatic twist on Maybrick¹s death, The Last Victim is a fascinating historical re-evaluation of one of the most extraordinary true crime puzzles of all time.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Chloe Skelton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really read this book to link it after reading the Diary of Jack the Ripper. It was a very good book and I really was fascinated by Mrs Maybrick's story. It was a fascinating read

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

As an account of the story of Florence Maybrick, this is quite good (especially on the questionable trial and her life in prison and afterwards, down to her sad old age as a mad cat lady). To be honest I thought the Jack the Ripper bit was nonsense: the alleged diary seemed to have very vague provenance and the book is full of unanswered, leading rhetorical questions. There did not seem to be much in the way of evidence placing James Maybrick at the scene of the Ripper murders or indeed any explanation as to why he might have acted like that. Remove the Ripper material and this is not a bad account of the Maybrick case.

[Janellyn51 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always been fascinated by Jack the Ripper and had read the Diary of James Maybrick a few years ago....I'm thinking it's on the level. Florence Maybrick who was married to said James Maybrick, I don't know....I found it hard to be sympathetic to her. I don't believe she poisoned him. But, she was a creep. I don't think you can assume that if a woman has an affair, of a few that she would graduate to murder any more than I think if you smoke pot it follows you would become a heroin addict, but it does make her seem cheesy. Of course her husband was no picnic, and I've been there and know that sometimes women are just starved for affection and someone who will even bother to talk to them, so I feel maybe I ought to cut her some slack. All that aside, her trial was a travesty of justice and she paid dearly for that. Her mother was from hell, and her whack job efforts to get her daughter released didn't do her any favors either. I found it sort of amusing that on petitioning Queen Victoria for Florences release, the fact that the mother had been widowed young, married a second time within two years, widowed again and married a third time, completely turned old Victoria who wore her widowhood as a badge. Well, the jury is still out on whether James Maybrick was the Ripper, I find his blowhard brother highly suspect, and I don't think Flossie murdered her husband.

[Mike Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Well written. Sad commentary of her life.