Memuat
Informasi Buku
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
Oleh Hallie Rubenhold
Tindakan Buku
Mulai MembacaCatatan Editor
Award winning…
Hallie Rubenhold won the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize — the prestigious British award for the best nonfiction writing in English — for “The Five: The Untold Lives of Women Killed by Jack the Ripper.” Judges describe her book as “brilliantly written and brilliantly researched … And it is so relevant now in terms of how crimes, particularly sex crimes and crimes against women, can be reported and considered and talked about.”
Deskripsi
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, Elisabeth, 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 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.
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 women.
Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, 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 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.
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 women.
Tindakan Buku
Mulai MembacaInformasi Buku
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
Oleh Hallie Rubenhold
Catatan Editor
Award winning…
Hallie Rubenhold won the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize — the prestigious British award for the best nonfiction writing in English — for “The Five: The Untold Lives of Women Killed by Jack the Ripper.” Judges describe her book as “brilliantly written and brilliantly researched … And it is so relevant now in terms of how crimes, particularly sex crimes and crimes against women, can be reported and considered and talked about.”
Deskripsi
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, Elisabeth, 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 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.
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 women.
Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, 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 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.
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 women.
Tentang penulis
HR![]()
Ulasan
In 1888, five women were killed by the person who would be called Jack the Ripper. The killings were horrific- they weren’t just killed, but disemboweled- and the newspapers of the time made a mint writing sensational stories about them. They characterized the women as ‘prostitutes’, and nothing more was known about them. The image was that they were out on the street and were slain while working. In reality, while all the women were frightfully poor, only one was a sex worker, and she was killed in her bed at home. The author brings the five women to life. I was amazed at how much could be learned about these women from existing records. Census records, records in the old workhouses, prison records, pension records, ledgers for various businesses, military discharge papers, school records, registers of births, deaths, and weddings- she must have spent a huge amount of time, combing through these primary resources. Then a huge number of books that were about conditions in Victorian days, which painted the backdrop for the lives of these women. It turns out that they led hard lives; that they had been homeless at times and had to sleep outside, they had been in workhouses, that they were all victims of alcoholism, and that society was pretty much set up against them from the start. The poor rarely had access to schooling, so jobs other than manual labor were closed to them. Women were paid very little for their labor; they almost had to have a man for the income if they wanted to live inside. If their man cheated, beat them, spent all the money on alcohol, or left them, they were up creek. One of the women *did* have a man, but on her last night there was only enough money for one of them to sleep inside, and it was her turn to sleep outside. This book portrays them women who didn’t always make the right choices, but they had precious few to choose from. They had all the hopes, dreams, and cares that everyone has; they were not just put on earth to be victims of the Ripper. It’s about time they are shown to be human beings. ‘The Five’ does this admirably.
Rating: 5murder, historical-figures, historical-places-events, historical-research, women, England It's about time that the stories of the victims and all of the marginalized women is told! I only recently learned about the book (and the opera) from a BBC Radio podcast, hopped over to NetGalley and begged for a review copy. As a history geek and a female retired nurse who worked inner city hospital as well as jails, you can believe that this is not an unbiased review. All of the folklore tells of the women being sex workers and alcoholics but not how they came to that end, or how women were viewed and treated at that time. Nor are most people aware of how limited the progress for poor women in ANY country. In telling the stories of each of these women and the author has given them proper eulogies as well as highlighting the inadequate legal process of their time. By the way, how many readers were aware that four of these women were over forty? I requested and received a free ebook copy from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing via NetGalley. Thank you!
Rating: 5“The Five” of the title are the five women most researchers agree were murdered by the serial killer known as “Jack the Ripper” in 1888: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elisabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. If you’re looking for a book about the murders, this isn’t it. There are plenty of those available. Rubenhold focuses on the biography of the five women from their earliest days up to the date of their murders. She makes extensive use of primary sources to piece together the personal history of each woman. The common thread linking the five women is not prostitution. Although all five women have been labeled as prostitutes, Rubenhold found no concrete evidence linking three of the women to prostitution. What they do have in common is alcoholism and homelessness. This book should serve as a starting point for researchers and curious readers who want to know more about the Ripper’s victims.This review is based on an electronic advance reading copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley.
Rating: 4Through the lives of 5 women, 4 of whom were fairly well documented from birth to murder, Hallie Rubenhold gives a grim picture of working class life in London in the last half of the 19th century.Lost fathers or husbands and drink and victimization as a domestic are were in their histories. The ravages by disease and unemployment even union hating capitalists contributed to the hardships. Where known, information about the parents and siblings, sometimes even the children of these women, give a deeper and wider view. Three of these women may never have been involved in prostitution at all, had been but was not known to have been at the time of her murder, and the last, the cypher Mary Jane Kelly, had returned to prostitution shortly before when her protector, probably due to drink, no longer had an income. It is remarkable how much information is available about women whose reality was ignored at the time of their deaths in favor of the lurid speculations that demanded they had attracted their deaths.
Rating: 4This was a well-researched look into the lives of the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper. I truly appreciated the idea of giving these women back their voices and their identities as human beings. I feel like we should be shouting "remember their names: Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Kate, and Mary Jane". These were women who lived hard lives, who struggled with poverty and alcoholism, but most surprisingly to me, were most likely not all prostitutes. That's been ingrained into my head since I first learned about the Whitechapel Murders, and it turns out, the only one who self-identified as a sex worker was Mary Jane. The others just had the misfortune of not meeting the Victorian standard of womanhood and were therefore labeled as prostitutes so that their deaths would be "no big deal" and they "got what was coming to them". I'd give it 3.5 stars for being readable, but not unputdownable, and a bit repetitive. Still, kudos to Hallie Rubenhold for giving Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Kate, and Mary Jane their identities back. To quote from the next to last chapter:"By permitting them to speak, by attempting to understand their experiences and see their humanity, we can restore to them the respect and compassion to which they are entitled. The victims of Jack the Ripper were never 'just prostitutes'; they were daughters, wives, mothers, sisters, and lovers. They were women. They were human beings, and surely that in itself is enough."
Rating: 4OMG! This book ripped my heart out! I read it twice!The Five by Hallow Rubenhold is such a deep and moving account of the biography of the last five women killed by Jack the Ripper. It follows each women from birth of possible, on up to death. My heart just ached for each of them. The society failed them. I had to read this book twice. The first time I was just emotional overwhelmed. The second time I was anger. If they had been born at a different time, or had different laws for women, had government programs for the poor that didn't discriminate against women, and others. Frustrating! I felt like I knew these women due to the tremendous writing skills of this author. She really brought out the 1880's so well that it was disgusting!This book is a gem! I am so glad I found it! This is the same author that has a series on Hulu.If you love history, the side that is never told, this is for you!
Rating: 5Illuminating, compassionate examination of the lives of the poor and working-class women of nineteenth century London, focusing on the five "canonical" victims of Jack the Ripper. Rubenhold attempts to shine a light on who these women were, their origins, families, and the challenges they faced in navigating harsh and unforgiving surroundings. Ultimately, even with the author's extensive research efforts, much of the lives of Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Kate, and Mary Jane can only be surmised and will remain as much of a mystery as how they died.
Rating: 4I think the person I'm most curious about is the young woman that had the smallest chapter (of course). This was interesting to see behind what you typically know of Jack the Ripper's victims and I appreciated that it started off saying this wasnt about the killer and stuck to that statement. I did get bored at times though, so I think that is my signal to take a break from nonfiction for a little bit. Taking a peak into life in the 1800s England was intriguing and this was thoroughly researched. Like I said though, I do wish there was more information on Mary Jane Kelly, the only woman that had openly admitted to being a prostitute, but I have no doubt that the author did more than sufficient digging trying to unearth her details.
Rating: 3Do we ever remember the names of victims of serious crimes or mass shootings? I seldom do, but I remember the names of the shooters of Columbine, yet not one of the victims. Is it the fault of the media, who continuously report the shooters names, but flash the pictures of the victims only once? We all know Jack the ripper, know he was never caught, and that debates today still ponder his identity. We have read repeatedly that he killed prostitutes, but was this an accurate description of these women? Rubenhold, does a fantastic job describing the lives of these women, as well as how the odds we're stacked against them from the beginning. As it was for many women during this time period.The author takes one woman's life at a time, chronicling their lives from birth to death. She also show us how life was for those who were poor, descriptions of the workhouses and the lives of those who slept rough. These five women took different paths to their eventual murders, but it is made clear that they could not all be considered prostitutes. Though they turned to drink, some to ease the pain of the lives they were forced to live, and in one case it as drink that caused her to lose her comfortable home and children.This is a well researched, well told book, and the names of the victims certainly deserve recognition. Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane deserve no less. They were victims of a time and system where some they little choice in their lives, few safety valves and few chances for improvement. They were is essence victims, even before their murders by the notorious Jack the Ripper.The narration was excellent and I give the narrator Louise Brealey, four stars as well.
Rating: 4This is an in depth study of the lives of the five women believed to have been brutally killed by a man society called "Jack The Ripper."This is not a tale of the murders, but you will find page after page of detailed history of what it was like for those disenfranchised and poor in Victorian society.Told from a unique perspective of the way in which destitute women were treated. Previous books about these women deemed all as prostitutes. The author does a remarkable job at meticulous research noting these were women who, while some battled with alcohol problems, others simply found themselves on the street, slumped against a building in an alley. Seeking refuge in poor houses, or begging for enough money for an indoor shelter, all lived day-day, struggling for food and a roof over their heads.This cycle went on daily as there was no way out of the poverty.Highly recommended.
Rating: 4I was fascinated by the detailed history of these women’s lives, and impressed by the depth of the author’s research. However, I really can’t give any credence to her theory that the victims were not prostitutes, or that Mary Kelly was asleep when attacked.
Rating: 5
This is the best book I have read all year. I have never read anything about the Whitechapel murders that humanizes the victims and honours their lives by putting the focus on how they lived, how they were loved, and how they survived in a dangerous world. Seriously...read this book.
Rating: 5I'm a casual fan of true crime books, but I am extremely picky about which ones I'll read; too many feel like they are glorifying the killer(s) and/or his/her/their crimes. This book is just the book for which I've been looking for such a long time! This book isn't about Jack the Ripper at all; it's about his (or her, or their, but I'll stick with he/his pronouns for simplicity) victims. The author has done a wonderful job of researching these five women and of painting a vivid portrait of the worlds in which they lived. The author really challenges the common myths surrounding the murders - for example, three of the Ripper's victims weren't prostitutes at all, and there is no proof that the fourth, who was involved in sex work in her past, had returned to it in Whitechapel. To be honest, this kind of blew me away because I'd read a couple of books about Jack the Ripper in the past, and NEVER was it even suggested that perhaps that one of them might not be a prostitute. Furthermore, in the books I read about the case, the victims kind of faded into the background, almost as if they were secondary characters whose purpose was to serve the "main" character of the Ripper. And in the end, the author completely calls out misogyny and its role in painting these women as prostitutes. And even if they HAD been involved in sex work, the author is quick to point out that this does not make them less "worthy" as human beings. Preach it.I originally borrowed this from the library (trying to keep my book buying costs to a minimum for the foreseeable future), but it is SO GOOD that I simply have to buy my own copy.
Rating: 5