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The five : the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper / Hallie Rubenhold.

Rubenhold, Hallie, (author.).

Summary:

Polly, 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. 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 a woman.-- Amazon.com.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9781328663818 (hardcover)
  • ISBN: 1328663817 (hardcover)
  • Physical Description: viii, 333 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 24 cm
  • Publisher: Boston, MA : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
Map: The five's London -- Introduction: A tale of two cities -- Part I: Polly. The blacksmith's daughter; The Peabody worthies ; An irregular life ; "Houseless creature" -- Part II: Annie. Soldiers and servants ; Mrs. Chapman ; Demon drink ; Dark Annie -- Part III: Elisabeth. The girl from Torslanda ; Allman Kvinna 97 ; The immigrant ; Long Liz -- Part IV: Kate. Seven sisters ; The ballad of Kate and Tom ; Her sister's keeper ; "Nothing" -- Part V: Mary Jane. Marie Jeanette ; The gay life -- Conclusion: "Just Prostitues" -- A life in objects
Subject: Jack, the Ripper.
Murder victims > England > London > Biography.
Working class women > England > London > Social conditions > 19th century.
Whitechapel (London, England) > History > 19th century.


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