The Five: The Untold Lives of The Women Killed by Jack The Ripper
Paperback Published on: 30/01/2020
£10.99
Bookseller Reviews
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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, fro... READ MORE
'They were human beings, and surely that, in itself, is enough.'
'The larger his profile grows, the more those of his victims seems to fade. [...] The victims of Jack the Ripper were never 'just prostitutes'; they were d... READ MORE
Be prepared to be angry
I wanted to scream at this book, like you do when you watch a horror film and you can see what's about to happen.
Gripped from the beginning, Rubenhold tel... READ MORE
A MUST READ FOR EVERYONE!!!
Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. These are five names you may know little about, if anything at al... READ MORE
A Road Worth Travelling...
It is often thought that because the poor were uneducated and deemed unimportant, that their history is lost from us.Let’s face it, when would these people... READ MORE
Gripping
A fascinating and in-depth research on the social history of Victorian London and the role that society played in shaping the womens' lives.
A really inte... READ MORE
Brilliant and Engrossing
What made this book so good for me was the similarities of the victims, shown against a clear and interesting look of the social history of the time. I kne... READ MORE
Incredibly moving
This is not a book about Jack the Ripper but about the five women he killed. Hallie Rubenhold has brought them to life in such a way you almost feel you a... READ MORE
Well Researched and Raw
The Five takes a different spin on the true crime novel. While most writers focus on the killer and their twisted motives and damaged psyche that caused th... READ MORE
Utterly absorbing
An utterly absorbing, necessary read. It was definitely difficult to keep going at times, knowing how each life ended, but I could not tear myself away. In... READ MORE
'They were daughters, wives, mothers, sisters and lovers'
Like most people, I grew up having learnt of the elusive Jack the Ripper - the killer who didn't get caught. He became a living legend whom couldn't go unm... READ MORE
Giving The Women Back Their Voice
The Five is a brilliant history book that tells the story of the lives of the five women who canonically are considered to have been killed by Jack the Rip... READ MORE
A stark and harrowing history of five forgotten women.
This is an exemplary piece of writing, fully deserving of the Prize for non-fiction and a harrowing tale of womens history in the shadow of a murderer.
... READ MORE
My favourite book of 2019!
The Five is both a fascinating social history of Victorian London and an important and more compassionate way of re-focusing history onto the victim and re... READ MORE
Devastating and compelling - unforgettable
Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane.
Five lives until now untold, only linked by a common fate: their deaths at the hands of Jack the Ripper.... READ MORE
Synopsis
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: 320g
- Dimensions: 192 x 124 x 34 mm
Customer Reviews
View all'Filled with righteous anger'
Rubenhold tells the stories of Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane - Jack the Rippers ‘canonical’ victims - in this unmissable piece of histo... READ MORE
Absolutely brilliant
An examination of the five women brutally murdered by Jack the Ripper. This book focuses less on their final moments and more on telling the story of their... READ MORE
Amazing
This book is simply amazing. Completely turns on the head the notions about Jack the Ripper’s victims. The personal stories of the 5 canonical victims is a... READ MORE
A brilliant, overdue history.
Mary Anne (‘Polly’) Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine (‘Kate’) Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. Known as ‘the canonical five’ or simply as th... READ MORE
Mirandapandareads - The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
Wow....firstly......I have a fantastic life and my problems are not even real problems!
The Five is about the lives of the women Jack the Ripper killed, a... READ MORE
Friends' recommendation
I bought this book as my friends read it and highly recommended it to me. I have not read it as yet but will do so very shortly. My friends told me that th... READ MORE
The five ripper murders
Excellent book concentrating on who the women that the ripper killed were. A slice of history showing how poverty blighted womens' lives in the Victorian a... READ MORE
Beautifully detailed telling of these women’s stories
Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly; “The Five” brings these women back to life and tells their stories u... READ MORE
Untold stories
Superb book which is very much needed. After so much speculation about the identity of the Ripper this book gives identity and dignity to the victims. A fa... READ MORE
The five
I really enjoyed this book. I am particularly interested in anything to do with Jack the ripper and the era. They were hard times and the author gives you ... READ MORE
The five
Great book,I will never think of these women in the same way again
Infuriating and Thought Provoking
This book sets the record straight and resurrects the identities of Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane, whom for too long have collectively b... READ MORE
A new and refreshing, if depressing, look at the canonical Five
This book was excellent.
Jack the Ripper is a legend of British serial killing; a prostitute murderer with an uncanny ability to hide, despite the police d... READ MORE
Gripping and Emotional
This was a really compelling read that full explored the lives of these women, I found it such a powerful read as it didn't focus on the killer or what he ... READ MORE
Documentary
It might have been a bit more entertaining and catchy, rather then just stating facts.
Truly insightful
‘You may view with some distant the lifestyles of those involved... whatever drugs they took, whatever the work they did, no one is entitled to do these w... READ MORE
Loved it!
'The victims of Jack the Ripper were never 'just prostitutes'; they were daughters, wives, sisters and lovers. They were women. They were human beings, and... READ MORE
You have to read this!
Such an incredible book, so fascinating and eye opening, and Hallie is a wonderful storyteller as well as a historian.
Non-Fiction/History/True Crime
3.75 stars.
I did enjoy this, it was great to learn about the victims of Jack The Ripper.
However, personally I would have preferred the victims death’s... READ MORE
A fascinating read
I'm ashamed to say that before this book, not once did I stop to think about the lives of the victims of Jack the Ripper (nor could I have told you their n... READ MORE
A Phenomenal Phenomenon
“There are two versions of the events of 1887. One is very well known; the other is not.”
Hold the front page because this Sunday Times bestseller and win... READ MORE
Excellent read
This is a fascinating take on the Ripper mythology. The author has bought to life the five women Victims through meticulous research and has corrected a g... READ MORE
The Five
I couldn't put this book down. It compelled me to read on.
It is enlightening, engaging, educational a break through in research
All secondary school hist... READ MORE
The Five unpicked.
Just brilliant! It made me rethink everything I've ever heard about Jack the Ripper. Quite a feat, when he is mentioned so rarely. This book should be part... READ MORE
The Five
What an eye opener this was! Of course these events took place in very different times but it was astonishing to read the facts that are known about each ... READ MORE
Necessary and overdue
I had no idea how necessary this book was until I read it. Wonderfully researched and diligently written, bringing those 5 women back to life in a way they... READ MORE
Mirandapandareads - The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
The Five. The Untold Lives Of The Women Killed By Jack The Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
Wow....firstly......I have a fantastic life and my problems are not ... READ MORE
One of THOSE Reads
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper looks at the five women at the heart of this terror, and, with this, looks at the social ... READ MORE
Beautifully written, humane and sympathetic exloratation of the lives and times of the 'Canonical Five'
Highly recommend The Five; the painstaking research that has gone into building a picture of the lives of the 'canonical five' is evident, without being dr... READ MORE
A riveting read!
Hallie Rubenhold's book is a detailed and extremely readable history of the lives of the five unfortunate women who ended up dead in London's East End in 1... READ MORE
Compelling and insightful
A really well written book about the lives of the Ripper’s victims.
The author pieces together the details about each of the victims and makes logical de... READ MORE
Absolutely brilliant
You need to read this book!! This book is written so perfectly and in great detail of the lives of the five women who were killed by Jack the Ripper. Befor... READ MORE
Harrowing but unsentimental
Books reporting the crimes of Jack the Ripper are always harrowing. Normally, this is because of the graphic descriptions of the horrific mutilations Jack ... READ MORE
Brilliant but bleak
A fascinating study of the lives of five young women in Victorian London which brilliantly minimises their terrible end and instead focuses on them as peop... READ MORE
Haunting insight to lost lives
The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
⭐️4
As someone with a morbid fascination with all things Jack the Ripper I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to find out mor... READ MORE
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