LoveReading Says
This phenomenal work of painstaking scholarship transforms our centuries-long obsession with the crimes of Jack the Ripper, focusing a lens on the lives of the canonical five victims: Mary-Anne Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. Rubenhold exposes false, deeply embedded historical assumptions about these women and unveils the prurience and misogyny through which the cases are often viewed. The beauty of this book is often in the meticulous detail, which brings the women vividly to life. Haillie Rubenhold seems to know so much, not just about her subject but about people. She shows you, slowly and gently, the humanity of the Five, as well as the nature of the age.
It’s a moving book. Death is the ultimate transformation, and Rubenhold illuminates each woman’s passing. I was in tears as I read the last few pages – which is simply a list of the possessions – some practical, others small personal treasures - that each woman had on her when she was found.
Selected by Catriona Ward, Our Winter 2022 Guest Editor. Click here to read the full Guest Editor Piece.
LoveReading
Find This Book In
| Primary Genre |
History
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| Other Genres: |
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The Five The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Synopsis
WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NONFICTION 2019
Polly, 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.
Their murderer was never identified, but the name created for him by the press has become far more famous than any of these five women.
Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, historian Hallie Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, and gives these women back their stories.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781784162344 |
| Publication date: |
30th January 2020 |
| Author: |
Hallie Rubenhold |
| Publisher: |
Black Swan an imprint of Transworld Publishers Ltd |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
432 pages |
| Primary Genre |
History
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| Other Genres: |
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Hallie Rubenhold Press Reviews
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
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
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
THE FIVE has received deservedly rave reviews. It's gripping. - New York Times
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
An outstanding work of history-from-below ... magnificent - The Spectator
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
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
A Sunday Times must-read. - 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
'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
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
Stupendous. The sort of work that keeps history vital. - IMOGEN HERMES GOWAR, author of THE MERMAID AND MRS HANCOCK
By collating these five deeply affecting biographies ... Rubenhold has given these women the immortality that their murderer does not deserve. - Daily Mail
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
Devastatingly good. The Five will leave you in tears of pity and of rage. - LUCY WORSLEY
What a brilliant and necessary book - Jo Baker, author of LONGBOURN
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
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
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
