Overview

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.

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9781489488374

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Hallie Rubenhold is a former museum curator and social historian who has made her name by discovering and bringing to the public attention the stories of previously unknown women. Her first book, The Covent Garden Ladies, (The History Press, 2005) recounts the history of The Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, the notorious 18th century guide to prostitutes. The Covent Garden Ladies has become a cult sensation and not only was the subject of a BBC 4 documentary presented by Hallie, but has been singlehandedly responsible for reviving an interest in the material amongst academics, artists, film makers, writers and designers. Her second work of non-fiction, The Scandalous Lady W (originally published as Lady Worsley’s Whim, Chatto & Windus, 2008) recounts the infamous lives of Sir Richard and Lady Worsley, and their shocking adultery trial. It was BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in 2008 and was dramatised for BBC2 in August 2015, starring Natalie Dormer and Shaun Evans. Louise Brealey is an actor and writer known for her roles in Back (Channel 4), Clique (BBC/Netflix) and Gomorrah (HBO Max). She played the role of Molly Hooper in the multi-award-winning TV series Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Her stage work includes roles at the National Theatre, Royal Court, the Young Vic and the Bush with directors Marianne Elliott, Peter Hall, Roger Michell and Howard Davies. Most recently she has co-starred in film comedy Brian and Charles and on television in Netflix’s ghost-hunting smash, Lockwood & Co. Louise can next be seen as the lead in the BFI’s lesbian chicken factory musical Chuck Chuck Baby.

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