The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

by Hallie Rubenhold

Over the course of her life, Elisabeth had been a variety of things to many people; she had been both dark and light, a menace and a comfort. She had been a daughter, a wife, a sister, a mistress, a fraudster, a cleaner, a coffeehouse owner, a servant, a foreigner, and a woman who had at various times sold sex. However, the police and newspapers saw only another victim: an “unfortunate” who resided in a Whitechapel lodging house, a drunk, degenerate, broken-down woman far beyond the blush of youth. They depicted her passing as sad and unnecessary, but no great loss. These impressions, when set in typeface, would become fixed and for the most part unchallenged. There were no dissenting voices to object to this portrait and no attempt was made to paint a fuller one. No one cared to find her Swedish family and tell their story. No journalist sought out her in-laws, or possessed any true curiosity about her past, about the gentleman in Hyde Park, Mrs. Bond on Gower Street, or the customers in Poplar who had sat on the benches of her coffeehouse. Eventually, the opportunity to truly know Elisabeth Stride would slip away with her killer into the shadows.