The cultural climate of Victorian London was shaped by melodramatic media narratives that framed the era's social anxieties and criminal cases as morality tales.

“In other words, even before the Ripper's reign of terror has ended, he's already well on his way to becoming something more than just a figure of flesh and blood. He's becoming essentially a kind of a myth.”

The Ripper case serves as an effective lens through which to examine late Victorian social and cultural history.

“The Jack the Ripper story is a brilliant window onto 1880s London, isn't it? I mean, that's the appeal of it. It's a fascinating melodrama in its own right, but it also allows us to do all kinds of social and cultural and political history of a period that looms quite large in our collective imagina”