The Five

[MrBarnett]

“From the outset, a number of so-called Ripperologists took offence at the book’s claims that it was the first full-length biography to examine the five canonical victims as a subject divorced from the story of their killer. Apart from a small booklet containing fifty-seven pages of text, nothing else on the subject existed, but somehow, I’d already got off on the wrong foot.”

Two sentences containing two lies.

Or perhaps three if you feel that a 35-page regurgitation of the little we know about MJK is not best described as part of a ‘full-length biography’.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Or perhaps three if you feel that a 35-page regurgitation of the little we know about MJK is not best described as part of a ‘full-length biography’.

Is this the Mary Kelly that no one knows what her name was, where she was from, how old she was, where she'd been, her occupation, her backstory? That one?

(I hear you DJA, but you never published a book claiming her history was fact)

[Enigma]

I don't think she was trying, Tristan, or she'd have called it: The Lives of Several Murdered Women in Late Victorian London, and sold about ten copies - all to Ripperologists.

Love,

Caz
X

Exactly.

There are obvious double standards here as others have already pointed out.

Without the Ripper connection this is a book on a subset topic about late Victorian social history and of interest only to a limited readership. Profit may not be the sole purpose of writing a book but it surely is an important factor. Certainly, it is the publisher's primary objective. The JtR tie in is necessary to make the book enticing to a wider group of readers.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Exactly.

There are obvious double standards here as others have already pointed out.

Without the Ripper connection this is a book on a subset topic about late Victorian social history and of interest only to a limited readership. Profit may not be the sole purpose of writing a book but it surely is an important factor. Certainly, it is the publisher's primary objective. The JtR tie in is necessary to make the book enticing to a wider group of readers.

I guess, if you were to put out a book about Jack The Ripper, your appealling to true crime enthusiasts and ripperologists, and that a niche market, and a knowledgeable one. A book about his victims falls into the same category, so where's the untapped market? Well, let's face it, there isn't one. Unless you create one for the readership who are new to it all. "Here you go, the women, the real lives, the victims. Of Jack. Oh, didn't I mention, they're victims of Jack."

**** me, Hogarth realised the situations people were in. Mayhew, Charles Booth. Cheers Hallie. What a revelation. Do I speak for many when I say they weren't whores? They were people, cold, hungry, uncertain, fearful, full of regret and cursing bad situations? Humans, like us? Some look for the killer. Some think of the killed. We're both united. It's the same thing. Does history repeat itself?

[DJA]

Is this the Mary Kelly that no one knows what her name was, where she was from, how old she was, where she'd been, her occupation, her backstory? That one?

(I hear you DJA, but you never published a book claiming her history was fact)

Gonna hafta wait for the movie.

Still seeking a suitable screenwriter

[MrBarnett]

Is this the Mary Kelly that no one knows what her name was, where she was from, how old she was, where she'd been, her occupation, her backstory? That one?

(I hear you DJA, but you never published a book claiming her history was fact)

That’s the one.

Rubenhold repeats the meagre back story related by Joe Barnett and adds a good dollop of imaginative guesswork to achieve her ‘magisterial’ 35 pages.

This was the chapter in the book I was most looking forward to, but it turned out to be a real damp squib. The research that went into it was rather superficial I thought. Despite the author’s claims that there was ‘nothing on the subject’ before she put pen to paper, pretty much all the ‘facts’ she relates about MJK have been repeated endlessly over decades. And when she attempts to imagine new facts she makes a mess of it.

[Michael W Richards]

As if the womens lives were only marketable because of how they died, or rather who killed them.

Isnt that the way recorded history works Mr B? Unremarkable lives led by unremarkable people are never recorded, its the link to something more worthy of a bookmark in time. Something that stands out.

In some ways the fact that these Five women are linked with infamy gives their lives a voice. Think of all the women in London at that time suffering the same kinds of sorrows as these women, yet they are shadows. We know nothing about them.

[MrBarnett]

Isnt that the way recorded history works Mr B? Unremarkable lives led by unremarkable people are never recorded, its the link to something more worthy of a bookmark in time. Something that stands out.

In some ways the fact that these Five women are linked with infamy gives their lives a voice. Think of all the women in London at that time suffering the same kinds of sorrows as these women, yet they are shadows. We know nothing about them.

The lives of the 5 seem interesting enough to me without considering the horrific way they died. And that’s apparently the author’s view, too. She does everything she can to airbrush their deaths from her accounts of their lives. They were not prostitutes, that was a lie disseminated by the patriarchal system under which they suffered, she tells us. They were found in dark corners of the East End because they had sought them out as places to sleep, she explains. ‘Enough of this obsession with Jack the Ripper’, she demands, while publicising her book about the ‘lives of Jack the Ripper’s women’.

[caz]

Isnt that the way recorded history works Mr B? Unremarkable lives led by unremarkable people are never recorded, its the link to something more worthy of a bookmark in time. Something that stands out.

In some ways the fact that these Five women are linked with infamy gives their lives a voice. Think of all the women in London at that time suffering the same kinds of sorrows as these women, yet they are shadows. We know nothing about them.

Exactly, Michael.

So whether she likes it or not, it was 'Jack the Ripper' who handed Hallie her five women on a plate.

Love,

Caz
X

[MrBarnett]

Exactly, Michael.

So whether she likes it or not, it was 'Jack the Ripper' who handed Hallie her five women on a plate.

Love,

Caz
X

She obviously prefers to dance to a tune co-written by the Ripper and MacNaghten. What would have been braver and more honest would have been to choose 5 other East End women. But I don’t knock her for choosing the five. It’s just the way the book has been promoted and some of the content that irritates me.

Some Ripper books I read and never open again. This is different. It’s quite useful once you’ve worked out which bits you can trust.

[Curious Cat]

Saw someone responding Hallie Rubenhold on Twitter the other day by rolling their eyes at Ripperologists using the term, "Canonical Five" as they felt it made them sound made up for a fictional TV drama.

Hello! The book is called "The Five". It's literally using the term as the basis for its title.