From Hell is a literary tour de force, one of many from legendary comics scribe Alan Moore. From Hell tells the (deeply researched) story of Jack the Ripper, but it is so much more than that. Quite simply, it is a story of London--the city is the book's primary focus and it soon becomes a living, breathing character in the mind of the reader. The amount of thought, effort, and research put into this massive volume is quite astounding and a testament to Moore and artist Eddie Campbell's profound skill at their craft. From Hell, along with Watchmen, is Moore's greatest work and should be read by all. It is a wonder to behold, I'd even go so far as to call it life-changing.

From Hell is kind of confusing for the first four or five chapters. You really don't have too much of a clue what's going on and who every character is. However, after the first murder, it really starts to weave all of the confusing parts of the first few chapters together and make sense of them. Alan Moore does a great job of showing what the Jack the Ripper murders might have been like, and also showing what the man may have been like himself. The ending wraps everything up quite nicely, and is really profound. From Hell is just more proof of why Alan Moore is widely considered the best in the business.

Like many, I knew the vague outlines of the Ripper murders. They occurred sometime in the mid-to-late 1800s in England, the victims were prostitutes, the crimes brutal beyond comprehension, and the perpetrator never caught or even identified. To this rather shallow appreciation, I applied Alan Moore's' "From Hell." I can now say definitively that I know much more about Victorian England - its mores and technology, its deference to royalty, its odd groups, its appearance and the way its lower classes struggled to survive. Whether I know more about the Ripper is another question.

From the scattered shards of the case, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell have put together a near-masterpiece. They weave a quasi-plausible tale that enmeshes royalty, Masonic orders, mad doctors, the easy women of the West End and grinding poverty. That the story is 90% supposition and 10% fact is no matter. Once inured to the gritty and gruesome story telling, the reader is propelled by the tale's drama and pathos. The book employs dozens of real-life characters, including William Gull, royal physician; Netley, his slow-witted coachman; William Sickert, the struggling painter; Abberline, the dogged investigator; Prince Eddy, weak-willed grandson of Victoria. But Moore and Campbell's most noble work is in limning the sordid lives of the victims. Constantly in debt to their landlords, they sell themselves for a few pence - either in a back alley up against a fence or in an out-of-the-way horse stall. The reader often encounters them -- the two Marys, Elizabeth, Annie and Catherine -- chatting with friends, enjoying a glass and fighting with their live-ins. No longer are they merely nameless victims of a brutal and fascinating (probably male) maniac, but women with histories, fears, aspirations and loves of their own. This willingness to acknowledge the personhood on the victims of crime is by itself a great contribution to the story.

Moore and Campbell pull no punches. Expect full nudity, turgid genitalia and sexual frankness where it is called for. Expect equally frank depictions of the savage butchery of the murders themselves. Also expect a conspiratorial approach that ought not to be taken as the final word on the story behind the murders in Whitechapel. The deluding rantings (whether of the authors or their characters) about Dionysian priests, sacred architecture and Masonic deities ought not to be taken seriously as historic. But they do give the book much of its creepy fascination.

The book's main limitation was in its artwork, whose often borderline artistic quality sometimes made the action hard to follow. Thankfully, the art was rendered in black and white. This made its goriness more tolerable, but made it difficult to determine what was going on - what was that black mass being pulled out of a body? The story, too, had its problems. Killing the women was easy to understand, but the mutilations, even under the aegis of being the ritualistic actions of a psychopath, made less and less sense as the horrors progressed and did not fit the facts very well. The perpetrator was mad, yes, but madness has a logic that was sometimes absent from this tale.

Toward the end of the book, a prose section allows Moore to provide the reader with a lens into his approach. He evidently took his information from the many books that have sprung up about the case, many of which sound pretty fringy, if you ask me. And that's before Moore applied his sinister magic to them. Moore is frank about inventing dialog and scenarios to fill in the gaps in the corpus of factual evidence. A little bit of research will show the determined reader that Moore bent many facts way out of shape to fit them into his thesis. This does violence to the truth, something I do not normally condone. But the flip side is that the reader becomes acquainted with the late Victorian era in a way whose verisimilitude (outside of the farfetched conspiracy) is shockingly persuasive.

Taken for what it is - a mostly imaginary retelling of an all too real tale of bloody murder, "From Hell" is enormously entertaining and compelling. Read it if you have the stomach for large doses of humanity at its most bestial and the ability to swallow conspiracy theories with a grain of salt.

Moore and Campbell have delved deeply into the story of Jack the Ripper, to present a version of what might have happened, based on what they knew and discovered in the research.

While odd looking to start with, the artwork seems to fit the squalor of the times once you start reading, and the density of the work is pretty impressive.

Thick as a phone-book and often difficult to navigate. 'From Hell' is a comic that demands a lot from the reader and not is possible to finish over a single visit at the restroom. But it will yet be a highly rewarding experience for whoever who dares to give it a try.

In one of his most ambitious works Alan Moore gives his version of the still unsolved crimes of Jack The Ripper. Stories of the police, the prostitutes, citizens of London and the killer himself are neatly meshed together with a enthusiastic analysis and ideas that appears very realistic though most is fiction. Comics are rarely seen as intelligent or complex as this.

Eddie Campbell's drawings has this raw and unpolished look that suits the story just perfect and he makes a great deal of portraying the locations, the people and the gruesome killings in details. The killings are extreme and not for the weaker but they naturally also plays an important part and should certainly not ever be left out.

Now, just imagine the enormous research both must have done for this book!

i made the decision to purchase each of the 10 books individually. only needing #'s 8 and 10 i DO NOT regret my decision. the individual 10 books are WAAAAAAY cooler than the one volume with the whole story in it. it means you get 10 covers with 10 different paintings... cant get cooler than that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's in black and white, a foot thick and will give you nightmares for a month.

If I could sum it up in a few sentences I'd be doing it a disservice and be a liar.

Buy it, read it and weep, for there will never be another book like it.

Watchmen for grown ups.

'From Hell' has been in the world of literature for quite some time now. Like several other works by Alan Moore, it had also led to a paradigm shift in the world of Graphic Novels right from the beginning. But this work has a particular shade attached to it that we don't encounter elsewhere. Jack the Ripper has been the subject of so many works that sooner or later he/she may also become the butt of jokes like Knights' Templar (e.g. truest sign of one's insanity being his launching of discussions related to Knights' Templar). However, this book is no joke. It is a grim yet fictitous account of the Whitechapel murders based on Stephen Knight's now infamous "Royal Conspiracy" theory.
The story is briefly about the indiscretions of Queen Victoria's grandson Prince Albert Victor (Prince Eddy) that leads to her marriage to a shopkeeping lady and causes the birth of a girl. When the matter is attempted to be suppressed by the Queen through Sir William Withey Gull, Annie Crook (mother of Prince Eddy's child) becomes insane, but this secret is learned by Marie Kellie. She forms a loose confederacy of some of the other "Joy Maiden"-s of Whitechapel to blackmail the royalty through the painter William Sickert, which leads to their being butchered by Sir William Withey Gull, as per masonic rituals. These crimes are finally exposed, but masonic cover-ups as well as other efforts to silence Inspector Abberline succeed in suppressing the actual occurrences and distorting the entire picture.
Like all other works of Moore, it is a research paper, aimed at analysing those killings and to come up with meanings that our philosophy can not explain. This book is not for those who might wish either to read it for pleasure or to brush up their knowledge regarding "Ripperology". It is a work that might very well challenge your sanity and compell yourself to look at those faces, leering at you from the shadows, with a little more concern.

'From Hell' has been in the world of literature for quite some time now. Like several other works by Alan Moore, it had also led to a paradigm shift in the world of Graphic Novels right from the beginning. But this work has a particular shade attached to it that we don't encounter elsewhere. Jack the Ripper has been the subject of so many works that sooner or later he/she may also become the butt of jokes like Knights' Templar (e.g. truest sign of one's insanity being his launching of discussions related to Knights' Templar). However, this book is no joke. It is a grim yet fictitous account of the Whitechapel murders based on Stephen Knight's now infamous "Royal Conspiracy" theory.
The story is briefly about the indiscretions of Queen Victoria's grandson Prince Albert Victor (Prince Eddy) that leads to her marriage to a shopkeeping lady and causes the birth of a girl. When the matter is attempted to be suppressed by the Queen through Sir William Withey Gull, Annie Crook (mother of Prince Eddy's child) becomes insane, but this secret is learned by Marie Kellie. She forms a loose confederacy of some of the other "Joy Maiden"-s of Whitechapel to blackmail the royalty through the painter William Sickert, which leads to their being butchered by Sir William Withey Gull, as per masonic rituals. These crimes are finally exposed, but masonic cover-ups as well as other efforts to silence Inspector Abberline succeed in suppressing the actual occurrences and distorting the entire picture.
Like all other works of Moore, it is a research paper, aimed at analysing those killings and to come up with meanings that our philosophy can not explain. This book is not for those who might wish either to read it for pleasure or to brush up their knowledge regarding "Ripperology". It is a work that might very well challenge your sanity and compell yourself to look at those faces, leering at you from the shadows, with a little more concern.

i really looked forward to this, as i love alan moore and i figured the age and setting would be a nice backdrop. but it really didn't work out well, there's a dramatic lack of impact. maybe it's because you know who gets killed and when, and from the outset you are told who is doing the killing. the whole jabulon nonsense was pretty silly. the dialogue is good throughout as a positive. moore is a talented writer but this one is a big disappointment for me on the whole.

i bought this book for my daughter. she loved it! read it in 1-day.

As pictured with this listing, there was a planned series (one volume released in paperback), FROM HELL with black and white art, and the book pictured is an edition from Alan Moore scripts.
One volume was published and more planned, but this paperback is a rare book and was the only one published.
It has only the first few scripts with annotions (notes by Steve Bissette and some Eddie Campbell art).

There WAS a collection of the trade paperback FROM HELL with black and white art, but the book pictured is an edition from Alan Moore scripts. A volume was published and more planned, but this paperback is a rare book and was the only one published. It has only the first few scripts with annotions (notes by Steve Bissette and some Eddie Campbell art).

This "comic" dissects the most famous unsolved crimes in history, peeling away their layers of misogyny, class stratification, abject poverty, imperial machinations, conspiracy, magic, and madness like so much flesh and sinew. Each chapter approaches the topic from a different angle, focusing here on the hidden Masonic architecture of the British capital, looking there in detail at the lives of the Ripper's victims. The basic plot is that the Ripper is one Sir William Gull, royal physician and Masonic magician, who is killing these women to keep them from blackmailing the Queen's grandson, Prince Eddy. To reduce the story to this plot, though, is to miss its incredible richness and intelligence.

Those looking for the definitive Ripper "solution" need to continue their searches elsewhere. As author Alan Moore notes in the second appendix, "Jack is not Gull or Druitt. Jack is a super-position." Instead of presenting the typical cops and robbers version of a played out murder story, Alan Moore uses the Ripper to reveal the banal horrors of everyday life for the poor women and children of Victorian England and to indict a male culture whose callousness and brutality was matched only by their religious and aristocratic hypocrisy. In Moore's novel, the Ripper is not merely a doctor conducting Masonic rituals whilst ostensibly ridding the Crown of a handful of blackmailing whores. Rather, the Ripper is the entire miasma of modernity, the calculated technological horrors of 20th century condensed into four murders, one year, one decade. Jack is the man who leaves his wife and two children to be with their midwife, he is the royal brat whose dalliances have disastrous consequences for the little people, he is the media bent on selling papers by peddling gore and hysteria.

The erudition of the cultural commentary in the volume is staggering. A review of the 42 page monstrosity of an appendix reveals the manifold reasons behind each frame of each page of the story. It all boils down to this: "Five murdered paupers, and one anonymous assailant. This reality is dwarfed by the vast theme-park we've built around it. Truth is, this has never been about the murders, or the killer nor his victims. It's about us, our minds and how they dance. Jack mirrors our hysterias. Faceless, he is the receptacle for each new social panic."

This book is a work of literature, easily on par with such other classic graphic novels as Maus, Persepolis, or Fagin the Jew.

I have read most of Alan Moore's oeuvre, but 'From Hell' is the one piece which I have returned to time and time again. I am sure it is Alan Moore's masterwork (to date) and comes with my highest recommendations.

I've just finished reading it this morning, having taken my time really sinking into it, reading other books around the subject and on-line reports and I'm inordinately impressed. The work is dense, moving and seemingly comprehensive. Moore presents the story as a work of fiction, weaving most of the other theories into his narrative in some form, and separates himself from the other 'Ripperologyists' (who he rather shamefacedly finds himself in the company of) by repeatedly inferring that this is a theory, and an entertaining one - not THE solution. By the end of the book you realize that the point isn't to solve the murders by identifying the killer - murder is far more complex than that, as is our fascination of it. The book is going against our need to 'sum up'/ 'break down' or offer information in bite-sized MTV attention grabbing chunks. As he succinctly puts it...

"Detective fictions tell us...Provide a murderer, a motive and a means, you've solved a crime. Using this method, the solution to the Second World War is a follows: Hitler. The German economy. Tanks."

Trust me - its the best book I've read on the murders (I've read a far lot - I was born and live in the East End of London and Jack the Ripper is seeped in the streets here). Its fascinating from a historical point of view, but also as a Swiss watch-like work of fiction. There are wonderful insights and comments from Alan Moore and you can actually feel him approaching the limits of how far he wants to travel into a serial killer's mind and also the guilt he feels as a writer in adding to the annuals of Whitechapel's Black Library. I thought that 'The Silence of The Lambs' was an insight into violent insanity - well, that book and film is like the ladybird books version compared to this, and I don't mean in terms of actual graphic violence - I mean in terms of intelligent thought into the psyche.

This edition collects all the chapters as well as Alan Moore's extensive notes (read them as you go along - its will enhance your experience in the way that a Director's Commentary does on dvd) and ending on 'Dance of the gull catchers' which is an exploration of 'Ripperologists' and the theories which have built up over the last 100 years. Its a particularly funny, cruel and sad note to leave us on -as some very complex theories are here presented in illustrated form - spiritual, metaphysical and mathematical. As you end the book you realize that 'From Hell' wasn't just about Jack The Ripper and Whitechapel, but by drawing you in and keeping you interested and entertained in such a masterful way, the book has also become about YOU - it has captured you into its narrative and is now studying and criticizing not only you but also the society we all live in...and its been found wanting.

"Koch's snowflake: gaze upon it, Ripperologists, and shiver."

Humorous and terrifying, intelligent and moving. You'll see what I mean if you read it.


James
Currently on the bank of the Thames
London

"Graphic novels" rely primarily on strong storytelling to keep readers interested. The artwork needs to move the story along and more fully flesh-out characters.

This is the one graphic novel in which the artist, who may have been stunted by the need to fill many panels with body language to accompany a near-superfulous amount of dialogue, is able to keep the story compelling through consistently striking drawings. Eddie Campbell is a master. Cross-hatching, smeared ink, shading, etc. This book is like a textbook for pen and ink drawing.

Considering Alan Moore's penchant for philosophical meanderings in this particular story, Eddie Campbell is nearly required to provide 24-frame-per-second animation. Yet, Campbell is miraculously able to keep things visually enticing through his use of many differing techniques. The most effective is his use of grey-scale shading in a few parts of the book. Most of the drawings are a scratchy black and white with no middle tones. (Check out the preview of the book that Amazon offers to see what I mean.)

I got a copy of this at the library. It's currently not in print, but Top Shelf's web site heralds an August 2006 reprint with a cover price of $35. Perhaps Amazon will sell it at a reduced price.

One final note: some of the same ideas explored here were also explored by Dan Brown in the Davinci Code: specifically, the "sacred feminine ideal" being suppressed in a male dominated society. Well, let's just say that Alan Moore is a far superior writer to Dan Brown. And this isn't even Moore's best work. (It still deserved five stars. Eddie Campbell rules.)

So funny how all the naysayers on this book either complain about the art, the ripper theory or the violence in the book. Hello! It's a book about Jack the Ripper expect some violence.
Eddie Campbells gritty art is perfect for the story. This isn't a good book to read if you brand new to comics, but if you're an experienced comics reader who can handle mature topics and (gasp) violence, pick up a fantastic book.

As was the movie...
Neither even mention Francis Tublety,

Who the world now knows was the real 'Jack The Ripper!!!'

Try "Jack the Ripper:First American Serial Killer",

for the truth (!!!).

When I first started reading graphic novels, which was about two years ago I thought that it was truly pointless because I was not familair with grpahic novels, I thought they were like comic books. I was wrong. The world of graphic novels is complex, and opens vast doorways into regions of the world that exist far beyond, and From Hell is one of those Graphic Novels that catches you by surprise and shakes you to the bone, I strongly recommend this work to any reader. The film adaptation was truly brilliant and compelling, rich with horrors and thrills and saturated with laughs and screams.

From Hell is very violent. Well duh it deals with the Jack the Ripper killings. This book was also very sexually explicit with lots of nudity and sex scenes and bisexual hookers and all sorts of stuff that can lead to puns on the term "graphic novel"

The story is an interesting take on Jack the Ripper. From the beginning we know the identity of the killer. We know more about him than any of his victims. The research and non-fictional elements were the highlight of the story for me. There are many details about London geography and the setting that added to the feel of the story. There were also endnotes, which gave some factual sources for what was happening in the story and there was an illustrated history of true crime books about Jack the Ripper which gave much of the credit for this particular theory to Stephen Knight's Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution. Basically here the killings are a Masonic plot authorized by Queen Victoria that gets horribly out of hand. There were some nice subplots about the prostitutes. I especially liked the idea of the doomed Marie Kelly planning an escape.

The illustrations are a bit crude probably to give the book a raw feel. They were a bit usatisfying to me because frequently they were just illustration and didn't do much to help the story along. In some sections the illustrations added to the story particularily on the sequence illustrating the final killing and a sequence contrasting the morning routines of the killer with those of the prostitutes.

If you want to read this be aware of just how much violence and sex there is.

"This story is chilling, frightening, dark, funny, morbid, original.." was posted in a review- I have to agree! This is a must have for your personal library! Spooky, scary,and it gets your heart pounding! I also recommend "Eternal Undying Love" by Brett Keane

I was absolutely amazed by the depth and quality of Alan Moore's FROM HELL. I've been reading graphic novels for a little over a year now, and in terms of subtlety, nuance, and overall storytelling, FROM HELL is head and shoulders above anything else I've read. I'm currently reading Moore's WATCHMEN, which also seems to be of equal quality.

I've never experienced anything close to what FROM HELL delivers in the admittedly short time that I've been reading comics. Alan Moore writes with the ear of a novelist and the eye of a portraitist. He packs this well-researched story of the Jack the Ripper murders with a wide and observant representation of life.

This graphic novel isn't just a retelling of the facts of the Jack the Ripper case (though it does an extraordinary job of that). It takes it all to the next level, and examines the reasons for examining such things.

It's not so much a suspense story (you know who the killer is right from the beginning) but rather one of internal discovery. A fascinating work of art and work of literature that should be read by anyone who wants to see just what comics are capable of.