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 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.

[2] One of the most vocal critics was Karoline Leach, who in a lecture about Wallace's theory gave three main arguments against it:[3] Similarly, anagram aficionados Francis Heaney and Guy Jacobson pointed out that similarly incriminating anagrams could be derived from Wallace's own book.

When Harper's Magazine excerpted Jack the Ripper, Light-Hearted Friend, Heaney and Jacobson wrote in response that its first three sentences:[4] This is my story of Jack the Ripper, the man behind Britain's worst unsolved murders.

That man is Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, author of such beloved books as Alice in Wonderland.are an anagram of: The truth is this: I, Richard Wallace, stabbed and killed a muted Nicole Brown in cold blood, severing her throat with my trusty shiv's strokes.