Grimy London: A Review of The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like other serial killers, Jack the Ripper has gone down in infamy for the crimes he committed rather than for who his victims were. Indeed, the five women killed by him have unjustly been labeled as “prostitutes” and their lives mostly forgotten. In this wonderful history, Ms. Rubenhold brings the lives of these women into the light, dispels the “prostitute” reputation they have gained, explores the social history of the poor and working class in Victorian England, and questions our contemporary society’s fascination with their common demise and killer rather than their uncommon lives.

To start things off, if you are reading this book for new details about the murder and the murderer, you are reading the wrong book. Ms. Rubenhold doesn’t waste any ink on nearly any detail of these women’s murders or the hunt for their killer. Plenty of books have gone over that territory and their deaths is not at all the focus of this one. Instead, Ms. Rubenhold writes five mini-biographies of their birth and life prior to their murders. In essence, by telling their story apart from their murder, Ms. Rubenhold gives them back the lives they had before Jack the Ripper ended them. At the same time, she goes into detail about the general lives of the poor in the working class in Victorian England. Things like work houses and the lives of soldiers and chapbook sellers are all detailed exquisitely here.

Honestly, I have no real criticisms of this book. My reading rate did slow a little towards the end, but that was due more to my own interests being distracted at the end rather than to any fault of the writer. Ms. Rubenhold has written an excellent counterweight to the Jack the Ripper mythology that succeeds on many levels. Whether you are an aficionado of Jack the Ripper books, interested in late Victorian English history, or none of these things, I would highly recommend this book to you.

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