
The Five
The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
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Narrated by:
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Louise Brealey
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By:
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Hallie Rubenhold
About this listen
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, but 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.
©2019 Hallie Rubenhold (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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The Furies
- Women, Vengeance, and Justice
- By: Elizabeth Flock
- Narrated by: Mia Hutchinson Shaw
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Furies, Elizabeth Flock examines how three real-life women have used violence to fight back, and how views of women who defend their lives are often distorted by their depictions in media and pop culture. These three immersive narratives follow Brittany Smith, a young woman from Stevenson, Alabama, who killed a man she said raped her but was denied the protection of the Stand-Your-Ground law; Angoori Dahariya, leader of a gang in Uttar Pradesh, India, dedicated to avenging victims of domestic abuse; and Cicek Mustafa Zibo, a fighter in a thousands-strong all-female militia...
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Shocking
- By D. Webster on 02-21-24
By: Elizabeth Flock
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Mercury and Me
- By: Jim Hutton, Tim Wapshott
- Narrated by: Patrick Moy
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The relationship between Freddie Mercury and Jim Hutton evolved over several months in 1984 and 1985. Even when they first slept together, Hutton had no idea who Mercury was, and, when the star told him his name, it meant nothing to him. Hutton worked as a barber at the Savoy Hotel and retained his job and his lodgings in Sutton, Surrey, for two years after moving in with Mercury. He was never fully assimilated into Mercury's jet-setting lifestyle, but, from 1985 until Mercury's death in 1991, he was closer to him than anyone and knew all Mercury's closest friends.
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Freddie's home life - A fantastic book
- By ACASSIDY on 02-04-19
By: Jim Hutton, and others
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Young Queens
- Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power
- By: Leah Redmond Chang
- Narrated by: Olivia Dowd
- Length: 18 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Orphaned from infancy, Catherine de’ Medici endured a tumultuous childhood. Married to the French king, she was widowed by forty, only to become the power behind the French throne during a period of intense civil strife. In 1546, Catherine gave birth to a daughter, Elisabeth de Valois, who would become Queen of Spain. Two years later, Catherine welcomed to her nursery the beguiling young Mary Queen of Scots, who would later become her daughter-in-law. Together, Catherine, Elisabeth, and Mary lived through the sea changes that transformed sixteenth-century Europe.
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Excellent writing, engaging narration
- By WEHOcloset on 09-22-23
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Madame Restell
- The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist
- By: Jennifer Wright
- Narrated by: Mara Wilson
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Madame Restell is a sharp, witty Gilded Age medical history which introduces us to an iconic, yet tragically overlooked, feminist heroine: a glamorous women’s healthcare provider in Manhattan, known to the world as Madame Restell. A celebrity in her day with a flair for high fashion and public, petty beefs, Restell was a self-made woman and single mother who used her wit, her compassion, and her knowledge of family medicine to become one of the most in-demand medical workers in New York.
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Every woman should listen to this book!
- By Ruth Aston on 06-18-23
By: Jennifer Wright
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Come Fly the World
- The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am
- By: Julia Cooke
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Glamour, danger, liberation: in a Mad Men–era of commercial flight, Pan Am World Airways attracted the kind of young woman who wanted out, and wanted up. Required to have a college education, speak two languages, and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5′3" and 5′9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at the time of hire.
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Come see the world!
- By Jessica Cancino on 03-20-21
By: Julia Cooke
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The Ghost Club
- A Penguin Audiobook Original
- By: Kate Winkler Dawson
- Narrated by: Kate Winkler Dawson
- Length: 4 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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For more than a century, some of the world’s most important thinkers and leaders—men like Arthur Conan Doyle and William Butler Yeats—gathered once a month and discussed the supernatural at The Ghost Club in London. In the early 1900s the club's chairman was Harry Price, the world’s most well-known ghost hunter. He and other members, like Harry Houdini, sought to debunk the charlatans who preyed on vulnerable people with fake seances, tarot readings, and spiritual encounters.
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í am rather disapointed
- By Ingibjörg Kolbeins on 04-04-23
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The Cure for Women
- Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever
- By: Lydia Reeder
- Narrated by: Sara Sheckells
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Full of larger than life characters and cinematically written, The Cure for Women documents the birth of a sexist science still haunting us today as the fight for control of women’s bodies and lives continues.
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History of women in medicine
- By Customer on 05-03-25
By: Lydia Reeder
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Ripper
- The Secret Life of Walter Sickert
- By: Patricia Cornwell
- Narrated by: Mary Stuart Masterson
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Vain and charismatic Walter Sickert made a name for himself as a painter in Victorian London. But the ghoulish nature of his art - as well as extensive evidence - points to another name, one that's left its bloody mark on the pages of history: Jack the Ripper. Cornwell has collected never-before-seen archival material - including a rare mortuary photo, personal correspondence and a will with a mysterious autopsy clause - and applied cutting-edge forensic science to open an old crime to new scrutiny.
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I thought this was a new book.
- By Stephanie on 03-01-17
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The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream
- The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer
- By: Dean Jobb
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream murdered as many as ten people in the United States, Britain, and Canada, a death toll with almost no precedent. Poison was his weapon of choice. Largely forgotten today, this villain was as brazen as the notorious Jack the Ripper. The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream exposes the blind trust given to medical practitioners, as well as the flawed detection methods, bungled investigations, corrupt officials, and stifling morality of Victorian society that allowed Dr. Cream to prey on vulnerable and desperate women.
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Hard to Follow
- By Jessica on 08-26-21
By: Dean Jobb
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Notorious RBG
- The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- By: Irin Carmon, Shana Knizhnik
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Nearly a half century into being a feminist and legal pioneer, something funny happened to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The octogenarian won the Internet. Across America, people who weren't even born when Ginsburg made her name are tattooing themselves with her face, setting her famously searing dissents to music, and making viral videos in tribute.
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"The Court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield"
- By Cynthia on 12-13-15
By: Irin Carmon, and others
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The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
- The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive
- By: Lucy Adlington
- Narrated by: Lucy Adlington
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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At the height of the Holocaust, 25 young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp - mainly Jewish women and girls - were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. This fashion workshop - called the Upper Tailoring Studio - was established by Hedwig Höss, the camp commandant’s wife, and patronized by the wives of SS guards and officers.
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Not what I expected given description and preview
- By Kaeli Mathes on 09-24-21
By: Lucy Adlington
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The Radium Girls
- The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women
- By: Kate Moore
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The year was 1917. As a war raged across the world, young American women flocked to work, painting watches, clocks, and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous - the girls themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in the dust from the paint. They were the radium girls. As the years passed, the women began to suffer from mysterious and crippling illnesses.
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A simple way to improve the robotic narration
- By B. C. French on 06-07-17
By: Kate Moore
What listeners say about The Five
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- JD_Justice
- 03-01-23
Consider me informed.
Others have left much more eloquent reviews but suffice it to say I was thoroughly impressed with the amount of detail discovered about these women’s lives. The attitude and lifestyle of that day and age, it is insane to think people lived in such a manner, but I am sure there are still some places that mirror those circumstances.
Thank you for enlightening me to the lives of Mary Anne, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary Jane before they were so savagely cut down.
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- Leah
- 08-28-23
Wonderfully written
A beautiful testament to these five women that were killed by Jack the Ripper. A must read.
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- James Anderson
- 09-16-23
Man What a Good Book!
I have this book 15 stars because it deserves fifteen stars in a perfect world.
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- Cathy
- 07-28-20
The Lives of the 5 Victims of Jack the Ripper
We have heard or read so much about Jack the Ripper but little is known about his victims. This author took the time to research each individual woman. Labeled as prostitutes at the time of their deaths, this author not only evaluated these claims and the family events that lead the victims into extreme poverty but also the societal beliefs of men during this time which contributed to the subjection of women. I highly recommend this book and thoroughly enjoyed it!
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- cat mccormick
- 10-09-22
incredible
a real historical look st the 5 women who were victims of Jack thr Riper. it humanizes the 5 woman who until now were just scratchy old photos . a must read for true crime lovers (storyline only up until death) and history bounding into women of the Victorian age.
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- Breanna
- 05-25-24
Amazing
Fantastic book if you’re looking for some history, a little fuel for feminine rage and some food for thought about how people like Jack the Ripper are practically idolized while the victims are forgotten. Amazing narration!
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- Dogger
- 07-24-21
Wow
Amazing. That sums it up. One of the best books I’ve listened to in the past 5 years.
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- Michele D
- 04-27-22
Just wow!!
This is definitely a well done book. It puts a personal touch on the victims of Jack the Ripper. The content and narrator did an amazing job. I definitely recommend this one.
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- Artguy149
- 01-09-21
A long-needed fresh perspective
This is an astounding work of research and diligence. The author brings to life the culture and world in which these women lived and died. That so much information actually existed about the victims was never known to me, and made me question why I had never looked more into their lives. The truth soon hit me: no one until now had bothered to find out. The information was out there, but scattered and forgotten over a century and a half. That she could locate and put together such a cohesive picture of these women and their society, give them back the humanity that was taken from them, is nothing short of a minor miracle.
The narration will take at least a chapter to get used to, as Louise Brealey’s British accent is heavier than I expected, but she was the perfect choice to read this because you can hear in her accent how the people in the book may have sounded in real life. She has a good ear for the regional dialects and the vocal class distinctions that even today are recognizable on BBC period dramas and in daily English life.
Be prepared to hear some grotesque facts of mid to late 19th century life, though she does not describe the murders themselves in detail, since that has been widely documented and dramatized from police reports, coroner’s reports and sensationalized newspaper accounts. Instead the brutal reality of just finding a place to sleep and enough food, as well as the sanitation situation in Victorian Europe as well as the ugliness of syphillis and the horrors of the workhouses is expounded upon in some depth.
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- HomeInTheHills
- 07-22-22
An eye opening account
Amazing and thought provoking work. It has put many things in a different perspective for me. Very detailed and very well performed. I recommend this to anyone interested in the topic and open minded enough to respect the ideas presented.
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