In 1888, five women were brutally murdered in London’s East End. Their deaths became synonymous with the shadowy figure of Jack the Ripper, while their own stories were largely erased. The Five brings the focus back to Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly, reconstructing their lives against the backdrop of Victorian poverty, workhouses and precarious survival.
Rather than centring the killer, the book draws on archival research to show who these women were, how they lived, and the social conditions that shaped their worlds. It reframes one of history’s most infamous crime sprees through the perspective of its victims.