57 pages • 1 hour read
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
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Summary and Study Guide
Overview
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (2019) is a nonfiction historical work by Hallie Rubenhold. In the book, Rubenhold offers a closer look at the lives of the “canonical five,” the five women who are agreed by scholars to have been killed by the 19th-century serial killer Jack the Ripper in the Whitechapel district of London. Rubenhold’s work aims to restore dignity to the five women by centering their own stories and experiences, offering a feminist approach to a story long dominated by the serial killer. Upon publication, The Five won the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize and was shortlisted for the 2020 Wolfson History Prize.
This guide uses the 2019 Mariner Books hardcover edition.
Content Warning: The source material contains explicit descriptions of sex work, alcohol dependency, sex trafficking, domestic violence, child neglect, and death by suicide.
Summary
The Five is a collection of biographies of each of Jack the Ripper’s “canonical” victims: Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine “Kate” Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. Instead of giving details about their murders, each biography examines the woman’s individual life and the social circumstances surrounding her.
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