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

Author : Hallie Rubenhold
Title : The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
Published : 2020
Publisher : Blackswan
Pages : 432
Genre : True Crime

     Five devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London - the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper. 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, it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told.

      To some extent or another, we all think we know this story. It is one that has been burned into minds the world over. the slaying of five prostitutes by a killer that was never caught. It is a strange thing how this story still persists to this day. Why is it that this one series of crimes more than any other still seems to be told over and over again. But there is one giant factor that we need to take into consideration when it comes to the tale of Jack The Ripper. What we know of his victims is wrong and always has been. 

     Whilst reading this book time and again I kept think how is it that serial killers are known so well. Page upon page is scrolled out going into every minute detail of their lives. However, when it comes to their victims we are told so little. It is almost like their lives are inconsequential to the story the world wants to tell. Nevermore so than when it comes to the media, who strive for the biggest most shocking headline the can come up with. In the case of the five, this rings so true. They had long made up their minds as to who these women were not long after their blood had hit the cobbled streets. Maybe it is also in the minds of well todo society by labeling them prostitutes it pushed these crimes to the edges of their world. It was unlikely the ripper would come knocking on their doors. 

     What Rubenhold sets out to do here is set the record straight. Taking a far more forensic look at each of them. She has clearly gone looking for every single scrap of evidence as to their existent. Spending time getting to know them far better than it would seem anyone has ever bothered to before. For once these women will have their voices heard and let us known that despite what may have been said about them they lived lives well before becoming simply known as his victims. 

     For me, this book opened my eyes to so much that I had wrong all along. Things that I took to be fact were blown aside like they never mattered in the first place. But for me, this is why I delve into nonfiction books. I want to expand what I know about the world. And should I be wrong about my thinking going in all the better. What she has done here is amass an astounding amount of information about the lives of a group of women that had very hard lives. We get to see not only their movements throughout the years but also who they were as people.  Their dreams and hopes for what they might become. No longer are they resigned to being black and white photos of bodies torn apart. We are made to confront the very real people behind the headlines that once where the talk of London. 

     For me learning about these women also showed me just how hard life was for all women at the time. The author strives to give us context as to how London and Europe treated women during this period. The hardships they faced, for the most part, were not of their doing society had them locked in place giving little wiggle room to escape. So they were stuck before their lives had really become anything. But going back to the notion that they where all prostitutes is one that we can't simply accept any more. As the author explains the term prostitutes was used to describe a wide variety of offenses or more to the point whatever the individual officer deemed it to be on any given day. An even if it were true for some of them that is not who they were, simply the profession that they had. 

     This book gives life to these women. It shows us that they where not simply headlines to scare the middle classes of the 1880's. It also shines a light on those of little means and how there were viewed by many. It would seem something have changed little since these women walked the streets of London. And for whilst you can read this as another tomb in the books link to the ripper I would say it is more the biography of five women whos lived to become daughters, wives mothers, and friends. And while they may have had there demons did not deserve to end up simply being known as the rippers victims.