The Five: The Untold Lives of The Women Killed by Jack The Ripper (Paperback)
Hallie Rubenhold (author)Published: 30/01/2020
A passionate condemnation of the misogyny Jack the Ripper's victims have been held in for over a century, The Five tells an engrossing group biography of Victorian womanhood, blighted by poverty and powerless against casual and constant abuse.
Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2020
Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2019
Five devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London - the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper.
Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-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. For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that 'the Ripper' preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told.
Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, revealing a world not just of Dickens and Queen Victoria, but of poverty, homelessness and rampant misogyny. They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time - but their greatest misfortune was to be born a woman.
Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 9781784162344
Number of pages: 432
Weight: 320 g
Dimensions: 192 x 124 x 34 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
FIVE STARS: At last, the Ripper's victims get a voice... An eloquent, stirring challenge to reject the prevailing Ripper myth. - Gwen Smith, Mail on Sunday
How fitting that in the year when we celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, dignity is finally returned to these unfortunate women. - Professor Dame Sue Black, author of ALL THAT REMAINS
A Ripper narrative that gives voice to the women he silenced; I’ve been waiting for this book for years. Beautifully written and with the grip of a thriller, it will open your eyes and break your heart. - Erin Kelly, author of HE SAID/SHE SAID
What a brilliant and necessary book - Jo Baker, author of LONGBOURN
Devastatingly good. The Five will leave you in tears of pity and of rage. - LUCY WORSLEY
Forests have been felled in the interests of unmasking the murderer, but until now no one has bothered to discover the identity of his victims. The Five is thus an angry and important work of historical detection, calling time on the misogyny that has fed the Ripper myth. . . This is a powerful and a shaming book, but most shameful of all is that it took 130 years to write. - Frances Wilson, Guardian
By collating these five deeply affecting biographies ... Rubenhold has given these women the immortality that their murderer does not deserve. - Daily Mail
Stupendous. The sort of work that keeps history vital. - IMOGEN HERMES GOWAR, author of THE MERMAID AND MRS HANCOCK
Fascinating, compelling, moving, The Five makes a fierce, passionate argument about the ethics of how we engage with murder. A brilliant,properly thoughtful, responsible piece of political writing. - BRIDGET COLLINS, author of THE BINDING
‘Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly deserve to be thought of as more than eviscerated bodies on an East London street. This haunting book does something to redress that balance. - Sunday Times
A highly readable work of rigorous scholarship that plunges the reader into the claustrophobic world of late 19th-century London... The story of these five women – Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly – is not one of death, but one of life. - Rebecca Rideal, NewStatesman
A Sunday Times must-read. - Sunday Times
Fascinating and hugely important book acts as a timely reminder of what happens when society ceases to care for its most vulnerable residents. - Herald Scotland
This confidently written book gives a rich insight into the world of the wretched in the late Victorian period. Rubenhold writes in a compassionate but unsentimental style… - Literary Review
An outstanding work of history-from-below … magnificent - The Spectator
Urges us to look beyond the familiar stories... The Five challenges the accepted view of the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper, and tells the untold stories of their lives. - History Revealed
THE FIVE has received deservedly rave reviews. It's gripping. - New York Times
A brilliant and important book that will reshape how this case is studied - anyone interested in social history or the history of crime owes a debt to @HallieRubenhold - EMMA FLINT
Becomes a passionate indictment of the true-crime genre, with its fixation on the minds of murderers and its shallow, glancing sympathy for the dead. Hard-edged and heartbreaking - Washington Post
Our fascination with true crime means we often focus on the perpertrator, such as Ted Bundy, rather than the victims. It's time to stop focusing on the killer and start remembering the victims: Polly, Annie, Catherine and Mary-Jane - Stylist
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“THE book to read of 2019”
Wow! now this is definitely a 5* read.
I couldn't put this book down, throughout reading I was just wanting more and more you can definitely tell that a huge amount of research went into every inch of this book....
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“1888 - LIFE ENDED FOR THE FIVE- IT'S TIME TO GIVE THEM VOICES”
A wonderful book. One of the best books I have ever read. Halle Rubenhold has written this moving and powerful book with care and respect for the VICTIMS. It's heartbreaking and thought provoking.
The VICTIMS...
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“Rubenhold Gives the Canonical Five Their Stories Back”
The Five is a book like no other, and it is long overdue.
The story of Jack the Ripper is one we’ve all heard. I heard it countless times growing up, from teachers at school and from the media, and I think most...
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