A review by lada1
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

4.0

This is an absolutely rich and engrossing true lives book about the five victims of the infamous ‘Jack the Ripper’. As the author herself explains -it’s so easy to glamorise this brutal killer of innocents. Here we hear about the lives of his victims, written into history as prostitutes. In fact only one of his victims was actually a prostitute. Society judged them all the same based on the snobbish Victorian values that would see any poor unfortunate who is alone at night classed as a fallen woman. Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane were all women who had loved and lost and for a variety of reasons found themselves in one of the poorest districts of 19thC London-Whitechapel. I found this absolutely fascinating and what I particularly loved about this book was this was the story of their lives. Their deaths barely warrant a line.