What We're Reading:
Natalia, ABC Amsterdam, December 2020.
Winner of the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.
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.
Staff Choice: Pleun
What an interesting read this was! THE FIVE by Hallie Rubenhold digs into the lives of the five victims of Jack the Ripper. A lot of times the victims of serial killers are forgotten: they are just a name on a list, a Jane Doe, a prostitute or a number. They are dehumanised, and who they where is of no importance to the killer and often also the media. We forget that these victims where real women with hopes and dreams, struggles and challenges.
Hallie Rubenhold gives every victim of The Ripper her own chapter and shows us that only one of his victims was a prostitute, something a lot of people don't know. It is a dark and sometimes heartbreaking read, but an important one if you want to know the whole story of Jack the Ripper.
