From Hell is a graphic novel by writer Alan Moore and artist Eddie Campbell, originally published in serial form from 1989 to 1998. The full collection was published in 1999 by Top Shelf Productions. Set during the Whitechapel murders of the late Victorian era, the novel speculates upon the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper. The novel depicts several true events surrounding the murders, although portions have been fictionalised, particularly the identity of the killer and the precise nature and circumstances of the murders. The title is taken from the first words of the "From Hell" letter, which some authorities believe was an authentic message sent from the killer in 1888. The collected edition is 572 pages long. The 2000 and later editions are the most common prints. The comic was loosely adapted into a film, released in 2001. In 2000, the graphic novel was banned in Australia for several weeks after customs officers seized copies of the seventh issue from a shipment intended for Quality Comics. Development Moore began developing the plot for From Hell in the late 1980s. Writer Neil Gaiman recalled Moore calling him up to discuss a television documentary he had just seen about Jack the Ripper, and then asking for Gaiman's help tracking down "rare and forgotten biographies of possible Ripper suspects at the British Museum". From Hell takes as its premise Stephen Knight's theory that the Jack the Ripper murders were part of a conspiracy to conceal the birth of an illegitimate royal baby fathered by Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, slightly modified: the involvement of Walter Sickert is reduced, and Knight's allegation that the child's mother was a Catholic has been dropped. Knight's theories have been described as "a good fictional read" whose "conclusions have been disproved numerous times". Publication history From Hell was originally serialized as one of several features in Taboo, an anthology comic book published by Steve Bissette's Spiderbaby Grafix. After running in Taboo #2–7 (1989–1992), Moore and Campbell moved the project to its own series, published first by Tundra Publishing, then by Kitchen Sink Press. The series was published in ten volumes between 1991 and 1996, and an appendix, From Hell: The Dance of the Gull-catchers, was published in 1998. The entire series was collected in a trade paperback and published by Eddie Campbell Comics in 1999; trade paperback and hardcover versions were published by Top Shelf