Aktion	Zweigstelle	Standorte	Status	Frist	Vorbestellungen
Vorbestellen	Zweigstelle: 07., Urban-Loritz-Pl. 2a	Standorte: GR.RM Rube / College 3b - Englisch / Regal 312	Status: Entliehen	Frist: 20.11.2024	Vorbestellungen: 0

Researched portraits of the five women murdered by Jack the Ripper in 1888 challenge popular beliefs to reveal each victim's historically relevant and diverse background while discussing the cultural and gender disadvantages that rendered them vulnerable. 25,000 first printing. Illustrations.

 

 

Miscast in the media for nearly 130 years, the victims of Jack the Ripper finally get their full stories told in this eye-opening and chilling reminder that life for middle-class women in Victorian London could be full of social pitfalls and peril.

 

 

Researched portraits of the five women murdered by Jack the Ripper in 1888 reveal each victim's historically relevant and diverse background while discussing the cultural and gender disadvantages that made them vulnerable.

 

 

Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

 

 

 

Five devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London-the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper.

 

 

 

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. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women.

 

 

 

For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that "the Ripper" preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told. Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, revealing a world not just of Dickens and Queen Victoria, but of poverty, homelessness and rampant misogyny. They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time-but their greatest misfortune was to be born a woman.

 

 

Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

 

 

 

Five devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London'the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper.

 

 

 

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. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women.

 

 

 

For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that "the Ripper" preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told. Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, revealing a world not just of Dickens and Queen Victoria, but of poverty, homelessness and rampant misogyny. They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time'but their greatest misfortune was to be born a woman.

 

Table of Contents

Map: The Five's London

xi

Introduction: A Tale of Two Cities 1 (16)

PART I POLLY

The Blacksmith's Daughter

17 (10)

The Peabody Worthies

27 (11)

An Irregular Life

38 (14)

"Houseless Creature"

52 (25)

PART II ANNIE

Soldiers and Servants

77 (18)

Mrs. Chapman

95 (10)

Demon Drink

105 (10)

Dark Annie

115 (22)

PART III ELISABETH

The Girl from Torslanda

137 (6)

Allman Kvinna 97

143 (13)

The Immigrant

156 (12)

Long Liz

168 (19)

PART IV KATE

Seven Sisters

187 (18)

The Ballad of Kate and Tom

205 (21)

Her Sister's Keeper

226 (16)

"Nothing"

242 (13)

PART V MARY JANE

Marie Jeanette

255 (15)

The Gay Life

270 (16)

Conclusion: "Just Prostitutes" 286 (10)

A Life in Objects 296 (4)

Acknowledgments 300 (2)

Notes 302 (10)

Sources 312 (12)

Index 324