Uncovering the Stories of the Five Women Slain by Jack the Ripper

Mike G.: A mostly ignored part of the infamous times made known . Bringing to light the tragedy and prejudice bearing on lives of women which unfortunately has continued to resonate in our own lifetime

United Kingdom on Nov 16, 2023

Steve W: A brilliant read - I would highly recommend

United Kingdom on Nov 15, 2023

Faith Louise: I am chastised and humbled by this stellar work about the lives of the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper. All my life, I, like so many of you, was fascinated by the murderer of women around the Whitechapel area of London in 1888. I am a writer, and at one time I even outlined a book about the killer, but never completed the project. After reading this book, I know I’ll never write mine. The world doesn’t need one more story that identifies the tragedy by the killer rather than by the women.

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold is based on incredibly thorough research that is well documented. Only one of the women was a prostitute (which doesn’t make her life any less valuable), and all of the women were victims of Victorian laws that seemed designed to condemn women to abject poverty.

The contemporary view of women as chattel of their husbands without rights of their own turned little girls into adults that were non-persons. The only joy they seemed to have was their children, and they watched them die one by one of illnesses we think little of. These women were destined to a life of servitude of one type or another, and a dismal death, whether in childbirth,...

United States on Nov 11, 2023

Cherryfran.: A wonderful book that is a must for anyone with an interest in the Whitechapel Murders as well as life for working class women in Victorian England. I couldn’t put this book down and I felt the author breathed life into the victims telling their stories in an insightful and compassionate way. Many writers on this subject fall prey to sensationalism and rehash well trodden paths. This author avoids this which makes the book a refreshing read. An excellent read.

United Kingdom on Nov 08, 2023

Nemesis: The books written on the Whitechapel murders could fill a bay of shelves but I suspect this is the first to avoid rehashing the theories over who the murderer or to treat the victims as walk-on parts, but instead to take a serious look at who the women were that lost their lives. I had virtually no knowledge of the misfortunes, hardships and contempt the 5 women endured before they were killed, or of how their lives turned on a moment of tragedy plunging them into poverty, alcoholism and homelessness, and all the while their survival depended on men to provide economic security.

Of course the author has had to make some calculated assumptions given the sometimes minimal or contradictory "facts" provided by contemporary witnesses, but she never passes off conjecture as fact. The facts she does provide are thoroughly researched, something borne out in the extensive list of resources she has examined.

And we are still failing to learn the lessons on 1888 even now, a point the author concludes with, as we see women on the edge of "normal" society as creators of their own misfortunes and to blame even for their own deaths.

United Kingdom on Oct 29, 2023

Amazon Customer: This was fantastic and shed a new light on the real lives of the victims. It is so important to know the victims to further understand the crime. It is blindingly obvious this guy wasn’t caught because of how the victims were treated.
Only issue- sometimes what was in the book and what was being read on the audiobook didn’t align- e.g. there was a name that was different on each
Other than that, highly recommend

United Kingdom on Sep 22, 2023

leonard bolton: The book's thesis contends that the five victims were not prostitutes. I doubt that this is the case but even though the author is at pains to prove her point I don't think it really matters. Who could blame these homeless ladies living rough in the London winters, where IF you could eat mattered more than WHAT, doing what was necessary. In that situation I would not blame any girl -- hungry and cold – slipping into hooking when it was the only thing that stood between her and possible death. Morality is only for those who can afford it.
The more preeminent feature of these five, was neither turning tricks nor boozing; it was what the Americans call flakiness -- their decision-making apparatus was thoroughly defective and it is not surprising that they ended up at the mercy of Jack Ripper. Had they had a grain of sense I doubt that they would have met their maker in such a horrendous way.
For example there is Polly Nichols. The readers can read for themselves what she went through on the pitiless streets and in the hellish workhouses and surely if she'd had an iota of rational thinking she would have said to herself that anything was better than that. A normal person would...

United States on Sep 03, 2021

Ga303: I've never had any especial fascination with Jack the Ripper, but snapped up this title practically the moment I saw it because I have always been curious about the five women whose names are only known to us today because they were his victims. Information beyond the scant details one can find somewhere like Wikipedia seemed simply unavailable.

Information apparently was available with a commitment to research, which is the crowning glory of "The Five." I was amazed by the amount of information that was included here about the women: their early lives, families, starting situations in life, and the circumstances that forced each into decline, destitution, desperation or all three. Throughout, I wondered why, especially well over a century after the murders, such detailed and compassionate compilations of their lives were only just now being presented.

I've always considered it so ironic that if you walk around a Christmas shop, or look at everything about the commercial aspect of the holiday that's considered most nostalgic, picturesque or quaint, you can't help but be served with images we think of as Dickensian: Victorian carolers; snow falling lightly on a hushed...

United States on Aug 18, 2019