"By 1888 London had thirteen morning and nine evening national dailies, including the new ha'penny upstart the Star. In wake of [the second victim of Jack the Ripper], Annie Chapman's murder, the Star's circulation soared to 261,000 copies a day, then dipped down to 190,000 in mid-September, and rose again to 217,000 during the first week of October. Rather like a crude barometer of public interest in the Ripper murders, this paper reached a new peak of 300,000 just after Mary Kelly's death [on November 9, 1888]" (Curtis, p.59).