Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
-41% $10.69$10.69
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
$9.49$9.49
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: ZBK Wholesale
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Image Unavailable
Color:
-
-
-
- To view this video download Flash Player
- 2 VIDEOS
Audible sample Sample
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Paperback – Illustrated, March 3, 2020
Purchase options and add-ons
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.
- Print length368 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherMariner Books
- Publication dateMarch 3, 2020
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.94 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100358299616
- ISBN-13978-0358299615
Books with Buzz
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more
Frequently bought together
Similar items that may deliver to you quickly
- The fibers that have clung to and defined the shape of Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, Kate, and Mary Jane’s stories are the values of the Victorian world. They are male, authoritarian, and middle class. They were formed at a time when women had no voice, and few rights, and the poor were considered lazy and degenerate: to have been both of these things was one of the worst possible combinations.Highlighted by 631 Kindle readers
- While a man could divorce his wife for a sexual liaison outside the marital bed, a woman had to prove her husband was guilty of adultery in addition to another crime, such as incest, rape, or cruelty.Highlighted by 511 Kindle readers
- Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes, or so it has always been believed, but there is no hard evidence to suggest that three of his five victims were prostitutes at all.Highlighted by 492 Kindle readers
- At times the coroner’s inquest became a moral investigation of Polly Nichols herself, as if the hearing was held in part to determine whether her behavior warranted her fate.Highlighted by 373 Kindle readers
- Within laboring communities, the social stigma of time spent at the workhouse was so great that many would rather beg, sleep rough, or become a prostitute than place themselves at the mercy of this institution.Highlighted by 326 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
|
|
|
|
---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews
Review
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 —
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Mariner Books; Reprint edition (March 3, 2020)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 368 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0358299616
- ISBN-13 : 978-0358299615
- Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.94 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #31,496 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #19 in Historical British Biographies
- #22 in England History
- #91 in Serial Killers True Accounts
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Each woman had a life beyond what they were, for centuries, remembered for. They had childhoods. They had family and friends. Life experiences that played a big part in what they became famous for. Life has never been gentle for women. It has made me laugh whenever I would hear woman called, “the weaker sex.” We bear children. We have overcome difficulties that are exhausting just to read of. We have been held back, valued less, yet trusted with the future, (historically who has had the responsibility of child raising and what is the future without children who grow into adults?). But we were the weaker ones. Okay. As I listened, and read, this book, of what a woman’s life was like back then, I admired these “fallen women,” who kept moving forward no matter what they had to do to survive the day.
I listened to this book on Audible. It was narrated by Louise Brealey, who did an awesome job. I also read the Kindle book. There were some slight changes in wording that made it difficult to read along as you listen. It was easy, though, to switch between listening and reading. I would recommend the book in either form. It was as fascinating as it was informative. True crime stories can be difficult to listen to. They can also be boring. This book was neither of those. I encourage you to read it and discuss it. It is an excellent book club choice.
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 surely be eager to escape such circumstances, which given the poor state of primitive economies and the lack of opportunity, particularly for women, would be difficult and any stroke of luck should have been avidly accepted and any chance taken.
Lo and behold, something does finally go Polly's way and she finds herself placed in a job that gave her what you would think was everything she would want: shelter, food, warmth, companionship, her own room, even money. This placement would seem like paradise compared with what had gone before and one would expect her to vow, like Scarlett O'Hara to "never go hungry again".
But what does she do? She takes what she owns and a few things she doesn't and repairs to where else -- the pub -- thus cutting all ties and voluntarily returning to where she started, without gratitude, and certainly without a plan.
Of course such ill-thought out steps can only go one way -- down, and she soon, and inevitably, urinates what little she has away; her paltry reserves don't last long in an establishment that only takes.
Prostitution or no prostitution doesn't hide the fact that Polly and her fellow victims lack any trace of common sense and yes, we've heard that it's the alcohol that does it! Well, we're all exposed to the temptation of alcohol but we don't all get destroyed by it. It needs something else -- flakiness! Even where these ladies get temporarily clean they don't take the appropriate care to stay that way.
Their karma just spells doom. Anyone, albeit female, poor, under-privileged, with a bit of common sense would probably not end up alone with Mr. Ripper. This may seem a bit flippant but these girls seem moribund from day one. The problems the author would like to blame don't quite cut it, but she herself is so blinded by her chosen obsession that the book is as much about the writer than it is "the five".
Well written, interesting, informative -- but a tad out of focus.
This book changes all of that. Drawing from a staggering pool of small snippets of information, Rubenhold weaves the lives and humanity of five very different women with the hard scrabble lives they were forced by circumstances to lead. What emerges is a remarkable volume of history, psychology, and social commentary unlike anything else seen on this topic. The author's scholarship and attention to detail is incredible, while her lack of presumption about the "facts" of the cases is commendable.
I give this book my highest recommendation. It should be required reading for anyone who thinks they know "everything" about the Ripper murders.
Top reviews from other countries
This book truly gives a unique insight in to the lives of the five victims of Jack the Ripper, and it’s nice to see the victims finally given the dignity they deserve. I feel that with murder/serial killer cases (and all crimes in general actually), we are so quick to discuss the killer and their lives, and to dig in to the why they did it that we overlook the most important people; the victims. That is what makes this book so refreshing from your usual true crime, the murders aren’t described, and the author only really mentions the Ripper once or twice throughout the book. That was one of my favourite things about this book, because for once Jack the Ripper wasn’t given the spotlight that he so desperately craved.
It was extremely interesting for me personally to read what it was like in East London back in the 1800s, as I lived in Bethnal Green and went to University in Whitechapel for a few years, so I can visualise a lot of the places mentioned, but the area is VERY different today. The East End is actually one of the trendiest areas of London nowadays, with Brick Lane, and Spitalfields Market drawing people in from all over, so reading how it was one of the WORST parts back then was absolutely fascinating.
These women’s stories highlight the huge difference between social roles then and now. Yes, we still have a long way to go, even today, but the way life was back then is absolutely shocking. It was so easy for a woman to find herself in a situation where she was forced to live in awful conditions or even on the streets, for multiple different reasons, that wouldn’t even effect our lives today. The Five was a massive eye opener on that front for me.
Each woman’s story was incredibly sad, and their lives were unbelievably difficult, despite the fact that they all grew up in completely different circumstances. Honestly, I don’t think I would have been able to cope with even half of what these women went through. The saddest part about each of their stories is that all of them seemed to be only one small decision away from avoiding their fate completely, and most of those decisions were actually forced upon them. Also, the revelation that there is a high chance that none of them were even prostitutes, despite what we have all been led to believe all of these years, was a huge shock to me, and another massively emotional aspect to their stories.
Hallie Rubenhold has written this book incredibly well. A lot of true crime can read a bit like a case file, but this didn’t feel like that at all. The writing style was gripping and enticing, as well as informative, and I really enjoyed that about it. The author has also been very delicate and respectful with her writing, but in a way that the horrible and upsetting details still manage to pack a punch. Honestly, I think she deserves a round of applause for this book.
The Five is a powerful, and heartbreaking read. The author really has given these women their lives back, and I think this book is incredibly important. A true crime book like no other, and one that I would highly recommend to everyone!
I give The Five a 4.5 star rating!
Can't really recommend this book highly enough. Fascinating from first page to last, especially as social history, this is a window into the lives of the five "canonical" victims of the Whitechapel murderer which brings all of the women out of the fog, grime and muck they're normally left in to live, breathe and tell their stories in the light.
Just brilliant.