An account of Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane.
‘The smashing of glass and jaws, the spilling of drink and blood was a regular occurrence among the multilingual customers who filled the music halls and drinking cellars… shrieking and arguing, singing and copulating.’
It is remarkable, even by getting a few pages in, that the truth of these women’s circumstances have been met only with muddied, assumed ‘truths’ prior to this book.
Set against the Dickensian world of mid-1800’s London, we meet the first victim of Jack the Ripper in the Street of Ink, who goes from relatively good conditions to increasingly unfortunate luck. Rubenhold provides an almost romantically-visceral environment for each of these women so that we become close with their journeys, from their parents’ meeting, through childhood to the last months of their lives.
Each detail revealed is a gem. Well-earned respect for these ladies. What becomes apparent immediately is how unsurprising the quickly-construed lies emerged. Rubenhold spares these 5 women the indignity of focus on their murderer; he is quite – fittingly – removed.
I recommend this book as the most compelling, hard to put down non-fiction text of 2019. Due to its intriguing nature, it is perfect for pandemic life as it whittles away the hours.
I also suggest The Five as a brilliant book if you wish to explore the social life of this time period, Rubenhold frames these women with the splendour of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. Amidst the cheering crowds and ‘festoons of flowers and coloured garlands [that] could be seen hanging from every sombre stony edifice’, The Five does justice to the perilous circumstances and unravelling happiness of women living in London at the time.
To read about those woman is to respect the lives behind the mask of ‘victim’.
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