
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle Cloud Reader.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.


The Five Paperback – 3 Feb. 2020
Hallie Rubenhold (Author) See search results for this author |
Amazon Price | New from | Used from |
Kindle Edition
"Please retry" | — | — |
Audible Audiobooks, Unabridged
"Please retry" |
£0.00
| Free with your Audible trial |
Audio CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
"Please retry" | £16.78 | — |

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.
View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.
Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.
Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
- Choose from over 20,000 locations across the UK
- FREE unlimited deliveries at no additional cost for all customers
- Find your preferred location and add it to your address book
- Dispatch to this address when you check out
Enhance your purchase
THE UNTOLD LIVES OF THE WOMEN KILLED BY JACK THE RIPPER
- THE MULTI AWARD-WINNING #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
___
'An angry and important work of historical detection, calling time on the misogyny that has fed the Ripper myth. Powerful and shaming.' GUARDIAN
___
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.
Their murderer was never identified, but the name created for him by the press has become far more famous than any of these five women.
Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, historian Hallie Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, and gives these women back their stories.
___
'Devastatingly good. The Five will leave you in tears, of pity and of rage.' LUCY WORSLEY
'Fascinating, compelling, moving.' - BRIDGET COLLINS, author of THE BINDING
___
Awards for The Five include:
- Winner of the BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE for Non-fiction
- HAY FESTIVAL Book of the Year 2019
- Winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards for History
PRAISE FOR THE FIVE
'Gripping' New York Times
'At last, the Ripper's victims get a voice... An eloquent, stirring challenge to reject the prevailing Ripper myth.' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'Devastatingly good. The Five will leave you in tears, of pity and of rage.' LUCY WORSLEY
'Dignity is finally returned to these unfortunate women.' PROFESSOR DAME SUE BLACK
'Haunting' SUNDAY TIMES
'What a brilliant and necessary book' JO BAKER, author of Longbourn
'Beautifully written and with the grip of a thriller, it will open your eyes and break your heart.' ERIN KELLY
'An outstanding work of history-from-below ... magnificent' THE SPECTATOR
'Deeply researched' THE NEW YORKER
- Print length418 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBlack Swan
- Publication date3 Feb. 2020
- Dimensions12.7 x 2.6 x 19.8 cm
- ISBN-101784162345
- ISBN-13978-1784162344
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Special offers and product promotions
- Get any 2 for £8. Offered by Amazon.co.uk. Shop items
Product description
Review
How fitting that in the year when we celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, dignity is finally returned to these unfortunate women. ― Professor Dame Sue Black, author of ALL THAT REMAINS
A Ripper narrative that gives voice to the women he silenced; I’ve been waiting for this book for years. Beautifully written and with the grip of a thriller, it will open your eyes and break your heart. ― Erin Kelly, author of HE SAID/SHE SAID
What a brilliant and necessary book ― Jo Baker, author of LONGBOURN
Devastatingly good. The Five will leave you in tears of pity and of rage. ― LUCY WORSLEY
Forests have been felled in the interests of unmasking the murderer, but until now no one has bothered to discover the identity of his victims. The Five is thus an angry and important work of historical detection, calling time on the misogyny that has fed the Ripper myth. . . This is a powerful and a shaming book, but most shameful of all is that it took 130 years to write. -- Frances Wilson ― Guardian
By collating these five deeply affecting biographies ... Rubenhold has given these women the immortality that their murderer does not deserve. ― Daily Mail
Stupendous. The sort of work that keeps history vital. ― IMOGEN HERMES GOWAR, author of THE MERMAID AND MRS HANCOCK
Fascinating, compelling, moving, The Five makes a fierce, passionate argument about the ethics of how we engage with murder. A brilliant,properly thoughtful, responsible piece of political writing. ― BRIDGET COLLINS, author of THE BINDING
‘Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly deserve to be thought of as more than eviscerated bodies on an East London street. This haunting book does something to redress that balance. ― Sunday Times
A highly readable work of rigorous scholarship that plunges the reader into the claustrophobic world of late 19th-century London... The story of these five women – Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly – is not one of death, but one of life. -- Rebecca Rideal ― NewStatesman
A Sunday Times must-read. ― Sunday Times
Fascinating and hugely important book acts as a timely reminder of what happens when society ceases to care for its most vulnerable residents. ― Herald Scotland
This confidently written book gives a rich insight into the world of the wretched in the late Victorian period. Rubenhold writes in a compassionate but unsentimental style… ― Literary Review
An outstanding work of history-from-below … magnificent ― The Spectator
Urges us to look beyond the familiar stories... The Five challenges the accepted view of the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper, and tells the untold stories of their lives. ― History Revealed Published On: 2019-04-01
THE FIVE has received deservedly rave reviews. It's gripping. ― New York Times
A brilliant and important book that will reshape how this case is studied - anyone interested in social history or the history of crime owes a debt to @HallieRubenhold ― EMMA FLINT
Becomes a passionate indictment of the true-crime genre, with its fixation on the minds of murderers and its shallow, glancing sympathy for the dead. Hard-edged and heartbreaking ― Washington Post
Our fascination with true crime means we often focus on the perpertrator, such as Ted Bundy, rather than the victims. It's time to stop focusing on the killer and start remembering the victims: Polly, Annie, Catherine and Mary-Jane ― Stylist
About the Author
I’d like to read this book on Kindle
Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Product details
- Publisher : Black Swan (3 Feb. 2020)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 418 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1784162345
- ISBN-13 : 978-1784162344
- Dimensions : 12.7 x 2.6 x 19.8 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 953 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 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 analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 April 2019
Top reviews from United Kingdom
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
I understand that in writing the book Ms Rubenhold was attempting to restore these women to personhood; but to deny the very social evil which made them vulnerable in the first place is to deny the awful truth of their existence. Their status as casual prostitutes was not voluntary and they are no less virtuous, no less deserving of our respect and compassion for having been so.
On the plus side the book is beautifully written and provides a rich context in which to place these events. If I have one further criticism it is that compelling and sometimes detailed narratives are occasionally woven from very sparse materiel which permits of many interpretations (the least plausible of which is often Ms Rubenhold’s). It is fair to say that the author ‘reconstructs’ events and motivations which she cannot and does not know based on a selective reading of very terse documents. At these times the book descends into pure fiction.
The book has heart and would be a joy to read but for the ideological posturing. For the casual reader it will be an immersive and sometimes moving read but for those acquainted with the facts it will come across as wrongheaded and manipulative.
However, there are times when she seems incapable of staying off her high horse. Yes, the sexual double standard is wrong - but it was still wrong the first dozen times the writer mentioned it.
And yes, no one should harm prostitutes (even though one of the more fascinating revelations is that at least 3 of the 5 victims were no such thing.) But it got a little insulting that she seemed to feel that I needed to be constantly reminded of that, especially in the entire last section. At the very least, people who actively disagree with that are highly unlikely to be reading such a book in the first place.
Her grasp of prostitution in London of the time could do with reading Judith Flanders's (pbuh) work. A lot of her sources seemed to be clear fantasy and Victorian pornography.
In many ways, my rating might be unfairly low, considering the enjoyment and instruction I derived from much of it. But I spent more time than I would've like feeling like the author was jabbing me in the chest and berating me for beliefs I don't hold.