From Hell

Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell use the Jack the Ripper murders as the center of a broad historical fiction. Their narrative follows investigators, victims and those who build explanations around violence.

The work began serialization in 1989 and expanded beyond its initial anthology setting into a large, heavily researched graphic novel.

From Hell is distinctive for treating the city itself as part of the story’s argument. Streets, institutions and symbols become a web through which authority hides and reveals itself.

Its historical claims belong to a fictional construction, so the book is strongest when read as an interpretation of Victorian power rather than a solved case.

The genre combines historical horror, crime fiction and speculative conspiracy. The murders are never only a puzzle: the story asks why some lives become publicly legible only through death.

Its occult structure creates unease without turning the victims into mere clues.

Campbell’s scratchy, crowded black-and-white drawing makes London feel harsh and unstable. Figures can seem swallowed by streets or rooms.

That visual roughness suits a narrative suspicious of neat historical certainty.