Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride, Kate Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly might be contenders for the most written about women in all of history, and yet their names mean little unless connected with that of their killer: Jack the Ripper. This book offers a survey of what has been written about the canonical five victims of Jack the Ripper.

Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Katherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly--the five known victims of Jack the Ripper--are among the most written-about women in history. Hundreds of books on the Ripper murders describe their deaths in detail. Yet they themselves remain as mysterious as their murderer. This first ever study of the victims surveys the Ripper literature to reveal what is known about their lives, how society viewed them at the time of their deaths, and how attitudes and perceptions of them have (or have not) changed since the Victorian era.