From Hell was serialized between 1989 and 1998, primarily in the anthology Taboo and later as independent issues, before being collected by Top Shelf Productions in 1999. Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Eddie Campbell in scratchy, atmospheric black-and-white, it is a 572-page meditation on the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888 — but calling it a “Ripper book” is like calling Moby-Dick a whaling manual.
Moore adopts the Royal Conspiracy theory (that the murders were committed by Sir William Gull, physician to the Queen, to conceal a secret royal marriage) not because he believes it historically — he is explicit that it is almost certainly false — but because it allows him to explore the murders as an occult event: a magical working designed to establish masculine, rational, scientific authority over the feminine, intuitive, and chaotic. Gull sees himself as performing a ritual that will shape the twentieth century.
The book’s appendix of annotations runs to forty pages, documenting Moore’s sources for every historical detail. Campbell’s artwork — deliberately rough, refusing the polish that might aestheticize the violence — renders Victorian London as a labyrinth of poverty, prostitution, and institutional brutality. The violence, when it comes, is depicted with horrifying explicitness — Moore refuses to look away from what was done to these women’s bodies.
Collecting From Hell
Original serialization (Taboo/Kitchen Sink, 1989-1998): Individual issues.
Collected edition (Top Shelf Productions, 1999): Trade paperback, 572 pages.
Market values:
- Taboo #2 (first appearance), high grade: $100–$300
- First collected edition (Top Shelf, 1999): $30–$75
- Slipcased hardcover editions: $75–$200