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The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction and of the Goodreads Choice Award for History & Biography

The award-winning, best-selling book that changes the narrative of the "Ripper" murders forever

Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, Catherine, and Mary Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from some of London's wealthi...show more

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Average rating: 6.06

100 RATINGS

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5 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

Little_Oddish
Feb 29, 2024
2/10 stars
DNF - Dry
Anonymous
Apr 24, 2023
6/10 stars
The Five focuses on the women known as Jack the Ripper's Canonical Five. This book delves deep into their lives and barely mentions their killer at all. It's full of intriguing insights and it's an eye-opening view into what life was like in Victorian London. However, since it is so truthful and doesn't deviate from fact (the source material is cited beautifully), the information is a bit dry. I wanted to respect and honor these women by learning...read more
AlexCruse
Jan 03, 2023
6/10 stars
I am not particularly invested in the history of Jack the Ripper but still found this an engaging read. I appreciated that this focused on his 5 confirmed victims rather than the killer himself.

We learn so much about them, how their lives got them to the point of being in Whitechapel, how misogyny of the Victorian era impacted these women, and most importantly, how not all of these women were prostitutes. You can tell that this author did pai...read more
seren04
Apr 06, 2022
5/10 stars
Insightful to learn about the victims, still can’t believe these crimes will never be solved.
nmbacha87
Jul 28, 2021
7/10 stars
Interesting to hear more about the victims and the misconceptions about women and their struggles during the time period. I feel like the author spent a lot of time talking about other things not about the women to try and fill up the book as there was not a ton of information about the women.

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