Jack the Ripper, Light-Hearted Friend

Jack the Ripper, Light-Hearted Friend is a 1996 book by Richard Wallace in which Wallace proposed a theory that British author Lewis Carroll, whose real name was Charles L. Dodgson (1832–1898), and his colleague Thomas Vere Bayne (1829–1908) were responsible for the Jack the Ripper murders.

This theory was based primarily on a number of anagrams derived from passages in two of Carroll's works, The Nursery "Alice", an adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for younger readers, and from the first volume of Sylvie and Bruno. Carroll first published both works in 1889 and was probably still working on them during the period of the Ripper murders. Wallace claimed that the books contained hidden but detailed descriptions of the murders. This theory gained enough attention to make Carroll a late but notable addition to the list of suspects, although one that is generally not taken very seriously.