The Five

Books | History / Social History

4.2

(1.1K)

Hallie Rubenhold

Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction and of the Goodreads Choice Award for History & BiographyThe award-winning, best-selling book that changes the narrative of the “Ripper” murders foreverPolly, Annie, Elisabeth, Catherine, and Mary Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from some of London’s wealthiest and poorest neighborhoods, from the factory towns of middle England, and from Wales and Sweden. They wrote ballads, ran coffeehouses, lived on country estates; they breathed ink dust from printing presses and escaped human traffickers.What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women. Now, in this gripping narrative of five lives, Hallie Rubenhold finally sets the record straight and gives these women back their stories.

True Crime

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More Details:

Author

Hallie Rubenhold

Pages

368

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

2019-04-09

ISBN

1328664082 9781328664082

Community ReviewsSee all

"I enjoyed this book because it gave these women their identity back. It also gave some intresting perspective on that time in history and how much of it still applies to today's world. One birth, one death and your financial security in this world does change no matter how far from "the harder times" we move. "

Andrea Chunn

"A detailed look at the lives of the victims who are too often overlooked. An important glimpse of women's lives and injustices that are sadly perpetuated today by sensationalism "

A B

Amelia B

"Great voice. You’ll never see the Ripper victims the same way. "

Aubrey

"It was more of a biography than a true crime book. It was solely about the women and their lives. It was not what I thought it would be."

Medina

"Essential for anyone interested in the Jack the Ripper case or anyone interested in how women get misrepresented by the media/history."

Laura Littlefield

"I think this is absolutely a valuable topic for scholarship, and I commend the fact that this book is written in a way that minimizes the women's murderer in favour of describing their lives instead, but I didn't like the book itself very much. The writing comes across as very silly and melodramatic in places, and in defending the majority of the women against the posthumous charge of prostitution the author sort of winds up doing what she condemns in the final chapter: diminishing sex workers as a subclass of women who are more deserving of ill-treatment."

awesome_user_984860

"This was so good. Very informative & it will blow your mind on everything you thought you knew abt Jack's victims. If you are interested in Jack the Ripper info, this is a must read."

A W

Ann Whisenhunt

"This was a well researched and thought provoking ideas and stories untold."

J A

Jessica Antash

"I want to check this book out…"

Stephanie McBride

"Historian Hallie Rubenhold writes about the five women slain by Jack the Ripper with respect and without gore. The killer is rarely mentioned. She challenges the notion that the victims were faceless prostitutes but instead were wives and mothers - one had even been well off - but all fell on hard times. The author stresses there were multiple definitions for the term prostitute in Victorian England and many did not involve the act of sex."