The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, Hallie Rubenhold

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

Hallie Rubenhold

Reader Score

82%

82% of readers

recommend this book

Critic Reviews

Great

Based on 8 reviews on

BookMarks logo
Winner:GoodReads Choice Award -History & Biography (2019)
Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction and of the Goodreads Choice Award for History & Biography

The award-winning, best-selling book that changes the narrative of the "Ripper" murders forever

Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, Catherine, and Mary Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from some of London's wealthiest and poorest neighborhoods, from the factory towns of middle England, and from Wales and Sweden. They wrote ballads, ran coffeehouses, lived on country estates; they breathed ink dust from printing presses and escaped human 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. Now, in this gripping narrative of five lives, Hallie Rubenhold finally sets the record straight and gives these women back their stories.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Mariner Books
  • Publish Date: Mar 3rd, 2020
  • Pages: 368
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.00in - 5.20in - 1.00in - 0.65lb
  • EAN: 9780358299615
  • Categories: WomenEurope - Great Britain - Victorian Era (1837-1901)Murder - Serial Killers

More books to explore

Book Cover for: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann
Book Cover for: If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood, Gregg Olsen
Book Cover for: Chaos: Charles Manson, the Cia, and the Secret History of the Sixties, Tom O'Neill
Book Cover for: Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of a University, Richard White
Book Cover for: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, Erik Larson
Book Cover for: American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper, Daniel Stashower
Book Cover for: The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial, Maggie Nelson
Book Cover for: What Happened to Paula: An Unsolved Death and the Danger of American Girlhood, Katherine Dykstra
Book Cover for: Judas: How a Sister's Testimony Brought Down a Criminal MasterMind, Astrid Holleeder
Book Cover for: The Wicked Boy: An Infamous Murder in Victorian London, Kate Summerscale
Book Cover for: The Midnight Assassin: The Hunt for America's First Serial Killer, Skip Hollandsworth
Book Cover for: The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer, Dean Jobb
Book Cover for: The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing, Sonia Faleiro
Book Cover for: Maiden Voyages: Magnificent Ocean Liners and the Women Who Traveled and Worked Aboard Them, Siân Evans
Book Cover for: Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, Vincent Bugliosi

About the Author

Rubenhold, Hallie: - HALLIE RUBENHOLD is a social historian whose expertise lies in rediscovering the stories of previously unknown women and episodes in history. The Five is the first full-length biography of the victims of Jack the Ripper to be published since 1888. By drawing upon a wealth of previously unseen archival material and adding a much-needed historical context to the victims' lives, The Five promises to change the narrative of these murders forever.

More books by Hallie Rubenhold

Book Cover for: Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen, Hallie Rubenhold
Book Cover for: The Lady in Red, Hallie Rubenhold
Book Cover for: Mistress of My Fate, Hallie Rubenhold
Book Cover for: Las Cinco Mujeres: Las Vidas Olvidadas de Las Víctimas de Jack El Destripador / The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, Hallie Rubenhold

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

A New York Times Book Review 'Summer Reading Best True Crime' A Washington Post '20 Books to Read This Summer' An Oprah.com '20 Best True Crime Books That'll Make You Want to Sleep With the Lights On' "Rubenhold has produced a significant study of how poor and working-class women subsisted in an unforgiving age."--The New York Times Book Review "Hallie Rubenhold's hard-edged, heartbreaking biographies of the five women killed by Jack the Ripper over two months in 1888 offer a blistering counter-narrative to the 'male, authoritarian, and middle class' legend of a demonic superman preying on prostitutes... Her riveting work, both compassionate group portrait and stinging social history, finally gives them their due."--The Washington Post "The five London women murdered by Jack the Ripper, in 1888, were long assumed to be prostitutes. This history shows otherwise, presenting deeply researched portraits of the victims as they lived: they were all poor, some to the point of homelessness; they were all apparently killed while asleep; and, with one exception, they were known by family and acquaintances not to be prostitutes. Each had a distinct story that has never been fully or truthfully told. Why Victorians preferred to embrace the myth is one question that guides the book; why we continue to do so is another."--The New Yorker "All too often, murder victims' stories are relegated to the footnotes of history, overshadowed by not only their violent ends, but the looming specter of their killers. In The Five, historian Hallie Rubenhold sets out to correct this imbalance, placing the focus on [the victims] rather than the still-unidentified serial killer who ended their lives in 1888."--Smithsonian "An effort to remedy the Ripper imbalance."--Time "A must for Ripperologists."--Publishers Weekly, starred review "Essential to students of Ripperiana."--Kirkus Reviews "Focusing on [the victims] backstories rather than the forensic details of their deaths, Rubenhold puts them back into their larger social context."--Jezebel "Jack the Ripper continues to be a mystery, but these women are now less so."--Bust "Rubenhold does a commendable job in bringing these women on stage and through their stories illuminating the appalling reality behind the veneer of Victorian complacency. For these women, and millions like them, life in Victorian England was not an episode of Masterpiece Theater."--New York Journal of Books "The Five is a long-overdue investigation that shines the spotlight on [the victims], giving context to who they were and what circumstances molded their lives."--Hypable "At last, the Ripper's victims get a voice...An eloquent, stirring challenge to reject the prevailing Ripper myth." --The Mail on Sunday "[A]n angry and important work of historical detection...The Five is not simply about the women who were murdered in Whitechapel in the autumn of 1888: it is for them. This is a powerful and a shaming book, but most shameful of all is that it took 130 years to write." --The Guardian "A remarkable feat of d --