Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper have often met in fiction, though only one of them is real

A fictional super-detective and a notorious real-life serial killer walk into a bar together..." I don't know if crime buffs have yet thought up a joke that begins with that line, but this gin joint would likely be in London's poverty-drenched East End in the 1880s: the sort of place where shady characters might drop in for a peg or pint at any time, even 7 AM, to ward off the cold and other miseries. And the carousing sleuth and murderer would be Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper, respectively.

These two men have often faced off in the pages of novels and short stories - and, apparently, in video games too. It's a fascinating pairing for obvious reasons. They operated on opposite sides of the law in the same metropolis at the same time: Arthur Conan Doyle's first Holmes story appeared in 1887, while the canonical Ripper murders took place in the summer and autumn of 1888.

21st November 2017