The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
And you can buy Ripper pencils and you can go online and you can buy Ripper T-shirts and cushions and keychains, you know.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
Where's the reality in this?
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
The reality is that these were five women.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
These were five human beings.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
And somehow, this whole context that they were human beings has kind of dropped out of the equation.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
And I felt it was really time to tell their stories, to allow these women to breathe again.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
Well, I mean, this is, I think, the missing piece from all of the Ripper stories and all of the Ripper books that have been written.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
And most of the Ripper books that have been written are about finding his identity and really have
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
very little to do with, you know, looking at in great detail these women's lives.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
They were, well, a number of them spent a period of time homeless.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
So Polly Nichols was on the street.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
Annie Chapman was as well.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
And when I say on the street, when we talk about homelessness, it's slightly different in the Victorian era as well.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
So there were a number of laws, and these were largely the vagrancy laws, which governed
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
how dispossessed people lived.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
So, for example, workhouses were established and it was believed that workhouses were there to ensure that people who had no home were able to go somewhere.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
Don't get me wrong, the workhouse was a terrible, terrible place to go.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
And in fact, it was so bad that it discouraged a lot of people from going into the workhouse and actually living on the street.
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
And what homelessness was in the 19th century?
The Bookshelf
On Rohan Wilson's Daughter of Bad Times, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five and Kauffman & Kristoff's YA SF Aurora Rising
was literally bouncing between sleeping on the street.