The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
Author:
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Book Type: Hardcover
Author:
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Book Type: Hardcover
A fantastic piece of research, drawing together the details of the lives of five ordinary, all-too-typical working class women who, were it not for the terrible circumstances of their deaths at the hands of one of history's most notorious killers, would have remained completely anonymous and lost to history.
Fascinating, even if you have no interest whatsoever in the -- what can I call it, without being rude -- "mythology" ... obsession? -- of Jack the Ripper. This is a window into the downward spiral of the lives of five very different women of Victorian London, who illustrate all too painfully how most working class people of that era lived on the edge of an abyss, and how one life crisis -- illness, loss of employment, death of a parent or spouse, collapse of a relationship -- could plunge them headlong into destitution, homelessness, and a life in the shadows, beyond the respectability and minimal comforts they had worked so hard to enjoy.
There was nothing quaint or historical about Rubenhold's descriptions of pathetic figures, roaming the streets at all hours of the night, trying to beg, borrow or steal the price of a flea-infested bed in one of the doss houses in the East End of London, That could be now.
This is a book that has gotten under my skin -- and that's a very good thing for a book, I hope you will agree. Rubenhold's research is amazing. Her writing is very readable. The subject, taking the spotlight from the homicidal maniac, and refocusing it on the victims, and their lives, rather than their gruesome deaths -- in other words, giving them back their dignity, and their humanity -- is important.
HIGHLY recommended.
Fascinating, even if you have no interest whatsoever in the -- what can I call it, without being rude -- "mythology" ... obsession? -- of Jack the Ripper. This is a window into the downward spiral of the lives of five very different women of Victorian London, who illustrate all too painfully how most working class people of that era lived on the edge of an abyss, and how one life crisis -- illness, loss of employment, death of a parent or spouse, collapse of a relationship -- could plunge them headlong into destitution, homelessness, and a life in the shadows, beyond the respectability and minimal comforts they had worked so hard to enjoy.
There was nothing quaint or historical about Rubenhold's descriptions of pathetic figures, roaming the streets at all hours of the night, trying to beg, borrow or steal the price of a flea-infested bed in one of the doss houses in the East End of London, That could be now.
This is a book that has gotten under my skin -- and that's a very good thing for a book, I hope you will agree. Rubenhold's research is amazing. Her writing is very readable. The subject, taking the spotlight from the homicidal maniac, and refocusing it on the victims, and their lives, rather than their gruesome deaths -- in other words, giving them back their dignity, and their humanity -- is important.
HIGHLY recommended.
