Quotessence
Home / Topics / Whitechapel Quotes

Whitechapel Quotes

Browse 20 quotes about Whitechapel.

Whitechapel Quotes

“There were some places, and streets, where he did not venture since he had learnt that others had claims there greater than his own - not the gangs of meths drinkers who lived in no place and no time, nor the growing number of the young who moved on restlessly across the face of the city, but vagrants like himself who, despite the name which the world has given them, had ceased to wander and now associated themselves with one territory or 'province' rather than another. All of them led solitary lives, hardly moving from their own warren of streets and buildings: it is not known whether they chose the area, or whether the area itself had callen them and taken them in, but they had become the guardian spirits (as it were) of each place. Ned now knew some of their names: Watercress Joe, who haunted the streets by St Mary Woolnoth, Black Sam who lived and slept beside the Commercial Road between Whitechapel and Limehouse, Harry the Goblin who was seen only by Spitalfields and Artillery Lane, Mad Frank who walked continually through the streets of Bloomsbury, Italian Audrey who was always to be found in the dockside area of Wapping (it was she who had visited Ned in his shelter many years before), and 'Alligator' who never moved from Greenwich.”

LondonHomelessHomelessnessHomeless PeopleGreenwichWhitechapelBloomsburyVagrantWappingLimehouseSpitalfields
Book:Hawksmoor
Create image

“The figure in the cloak had turned, waving a fist in the air in a gesture of pure spite. ‘Damn you!’ My whispered curse came as I drew my revolver, pausing only to take aim. Two shots rang out, shattering the very air between us. I could not be sure if the heavy bullets had found their mark; the fiend whirling around behind a chimney-stack a moment after I fired. A groan from the blackness below-it was Holmes!. - John Watson, Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders”

MurderMurder MysteryWatsonSherlock HolmesJack The RipperSherlockWhitechapelMurdersSherlockian
Book:Sherlock Holmes and The Whitechapel Murders: An account of the matter by John Watson M.D.
Create image

“No murderer had before or has since caused such a sensation, passed so quickly into folklore or gained an image – top hat, cape and Gladstone bag – that is truly iconic: as instantly recognisable as Sherlock Holmes's deerstalker and meerschaum pipe, and as capable of conveying a meaning understood around the world – even by people who know nothing about the Ripper or what he did, or that he, unlike Holmes, actually existed.”

Serial KillerJack The RipperWhitechapel
Book:Jack the Ripper: The Facts
Create image

“Watson, for some time now I have had cause to believe in the improbable-the existence of a mind so exceptional, so well- trained in the sciences and the doctrine of criminology as to be Master of the Arts.’ The suggestion was fantastic!. ‘A Professor of crime?.’ - Holmes to Watson, Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders”

Sherlock HolmesJack The RipperSherlockWhitechapelJack The Ripper Whitechapel
Book:Sherlock Holmes and The Whitechapel Murders: An account of the matter by John Watson M.D.
Create image

“He drew an oval shape to the left of the board, a doorway to the centre and a noose to the right. ‘Here-’ - he indicated the oval- ‘We have the population of London, gathered together in a single mass. Our door here will admit just one of these millions, so acting as a filter. This individual is the one suited for the noose, the man we shall see hang.’ ‘But, Holmes-how do we make the correct selection?, the odds must be several million to one.’ ‘Let us see if we can lower those odds. - Holmes to Watson, Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders”

Sherlock HolmesJack The RipperSherlockWhitechapel
Book:Sherlock Holmes and The Whitechapel Murders: An account of the matter by John Watson M.D.
Create image

“The city reeked of death, and the savages that resided within its imposing starkness existed in fear of their lives. They had been shocked by the recent bloody Whitechapel murders, as if starvation, disease, moral degradation, and perpetual smog drowning all color in gray wasn’t enough to bring home the pathetic reality of their miserable existence. The police were no nearer to capturing the monster that lurked in the crevices, and London seemed stiller in the dark, the streets devoid of hope.”

VampiresJack The RipperWhitechapel
Book:Something Wicked
Create image

“If the street life, not the Whitechapel street life, but that of the common but so-called respectable part of town is in any city more gloomy, more ugly, more grimy, more cruel than in London, I certainly don't care to see it. Sometimes it occurs to one that possibly all the failures of this generation, the world over, have been suddenly swept into London, for the streets are a restless, breathing, malodorous pageant of the seedy of all nations.”

IfsWorldHas BeensSometimesCareNationsCommonCitiesGenerationsStreetsTownsDon't CareUglyLondonBreathingRestlessRespectableGloomyThis GenerationPageantStreet LifeWhitechapel
Author:Willa Cather
Create image

“I cannot be a materialist - but Oh, how is it possible that a God who speaks to all hearts can let Belgravia go laughing to a vicious luxury, and Whitechapel cursing to a filthy debauchery - such suffering, such dreadful suffering - and shall the short years of Christ's mission atone for it all?”

YearsHeartSufferingSpeakChristLaughingAtheismMissionsPositive AtheismLuxuryViciousFilthyCursingDebaucheryWhitechapel
Book:The Letters of D. H. Lawrence
Create image