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The Five

The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

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The Five

Written by: Hallie Rubenhold
Narrated by: Louise Brealey
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Five devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London - the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper.

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. 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, but 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.

©2019 Hallie Rubenhold (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Europe Great Britain Murder True Crime Women England Crime Thought-Provoking United Kingdom Victorian True Crime

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The biggest crime these people had was being a woman…..horrible outcomes from being abandoned!! With children no less. Not well protected by anyone, no where to go, no one to help….God Bless them…..

Such an Education!!!!

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This book gives an incredible perspective on history. I loved it so much. It doesn't focus on how "The Five" lives ended, but rather on how the women grew up, started families, and fell into hard times in Victorian England. "The Five" is now on my list of favourite biographies, along with the "A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard", another biography that does a great job of humanizing its subject.

A joy to read!

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I have been waiting forever it seems for a biography about the victims of Jacky boy. So interesting, moving and beautiful the way these woman lived. Their lives mattered no matter where they came from or how they lived. R.I.P. FIVE P. A. E. C.M

love it love it

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Amongst the plethora of Ripper information, this book stands out as an important antidote to the gruesome murders. With her careful research and beautiful writing style, Ms. Rubenhold transforms the five women from dismissed "prostitutes" into real life women with hopes, dreams, families and shortcomings, i.e. human beings who deserve to be remembered far more than the monster who killed them.

Excellent!

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This is a must-read for anyone interested in the True Crime genre, either as a reader or a writer. It provides a missing dimension to the tragedies. These were not just victims, they were REAL PEOPLE, who had lives, families, and ambitions.

In these cases, the tabloid and popular press have maligned the victims of the Ripper, by branding them all as prostitutes. Only one was definitively such. The others were victims of the system long before their deaths, so the book is also an indictment of the British Government in the 19th century.

Not mere victims

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