Fiction
In 1836 a fictitious autobiography of Ketch, with illustrations from designs by Meadows entitled The autobiography of Jack Ketch, was published. Another book entitled Life of Jack Ketch with Cuts of his own Execution was furnished by Tom Hood for the Duke of Devonshire's library at Chatsworth.
Jack Ketch is one of the characters in Giovanni Piccini (d.1835) The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Punch and Judy as dictated to John Payne Collier, in 1828. He is mentioned in the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield. More recently, Jack Ketch plays a role in Neal Stephenson's 2003 and 2004 volumes Quicksilver and The System of the World, the first and last volumes, respectively, in his The Baroque Cycle series. His name is also used frequently in Neal Asher's series of Polity Universe Sci-Fi novels. Ketch's name (The Jack Ketch) is, for somewhat inscrutable reasons, taken by a ship-based AI. The name Jack Ketch, referring to whoever was the hangman of the day, also appears in the children's book series The Gideon Trilogy, written by Linda Buckley-Archer. He also makes an appearance in the Fables series of comic books. In the series Batman Incorporated, a masked executioner works for Talia al Ghul under the name of "Jack Ketch".
Read more about this topic: Jack Ketch
Famous quotes containing the word fiction:
“One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in pentameters, clearly has no business in literature. He cannot distinguish fiction from fact, and belongs in the same category as the people who send cheques to radio stations for the relief of suffering heroines in soap operas.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where human perception begins. He appeals through the senses, and you cannot appeal to the senses with abstractions.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)