The Five

[Gottalife]

Just ordered this book. Looks like a really fascinating read.

The Five by Halle Rubenhold.

"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

It’s brilliant!

It's a great book and on the day Sutcliffe is in the news it's amazing how little has changed. There are many parallels to how the women in both cases were treated.

It's really good.

It's the best book I've read this year.

It's excellent. I rarely read non fiction but I really enjoyed it.

It's great – I read it in about two days because I couldn't put it down. So well researched.

It is excellent, both very readable and illuminating.

It is a really good book.

This is a brilliant book. Incredibly well researched, and also so revealing. One of those books that makes you think in a new way about something.

Its a very good book and a fascinating insight into what life was like for women af that time. Like PP has said has remarkable parallels to the poor victims of Peter Sutcliffe.

It's a veritable tour de force of research and data collection. A very good read indeed.

Really excellent book and very affecting.

I just want to bump this up. I'm only a few hours in (on Audible, I know 😬), but this is a fantastic book.

Oh I LOVED this book, I recommend it to everyone. I wrote to the author to thank her for giving a voice to those 5 women who are so often reduced to a grisly description of injuries, alcoholism and sex work.

I am distantly related to one of the victims, so I was pleased to hear that she had had a somewhat nice life before being murdered.