Elizabeth Stride And Jack The Ripper: The Life and Death of the Reputed Third Victim [Paperback]

Dave Yost (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0786433183 | ISBN-13: 978-0786433186 | Publication Date: July 23, 2008

As soon as the newspapers hit the streets on October 1, 1888, Elizabeth Stride became world renowned as the third victim of Jack the Ripper. Reportedly, Stride was killed only an hour before fellow victim Catherine Eddowes, becoming a key player in the legendary "double event" of Jack the Ripper's brief but notorious killing career. This book tells the complete life story of Elisabeth Gustafsdotter, beginning with her birth in Sweden during the winter of 1843. The author describes Stride's reported "habitual drunkenness," her brief career as a prostitute, and the public aftermath of her untimely death. Period photos and sketches are included throughout the work, along with several appendices and an index.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dave Yost works in the engineering and design fields. He is a coauthor of The News from Whitechapel (2002) and lives in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: McFarland (July 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786433183
• ISBN-13: 978-0786433186
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,825,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Worthwhile purchase for Ripperologists... but not a great book, September 17, 2010

By 

C. J. Thompson "Arctic John" (Pond Inlet, Nunavut Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Elizabeth Stride And Jack The Ripper: The Life and Death of the Reputed Third Victim (Paperback)

First, let me say that this is not a book for newcomers to the whole 'Jack the Ripper' history. This book is a very specialized study of just one of the alleged victims and it delves into a lot of secondary information that will be beyond the interest of most readers.

For Ripperologists this is a actually a very worthwhile purchase as the background research into Liz Stride's antecedents is quite comprehensive and not at all badly documented in the end-notes. That being said, however, I only give this book 3 stars for a number of reasons:

First, although I very much agree with the ultimate conclusion of the author as to the status of Ms Stride as a Ripper victim, I cannot say the same for many other findings he makes. Mr Yost's assessment of a lot of witness testimony was not at all impressive. He supported a lot of 'evidence' that a lot of investigators have dismissed as unreliable for no better reasons than it seems to fit with his basic beliefs about the case.

I also found that, given the excellent research into Elizabeth Stride's early life, there was so little discussion about her ex-boyfriend, Michael Kidney, and nearly nothing about his background. This was a particularly glaring deficiency, I thought, given the conclusion Mr Yost draws at the end of the book.

Ultimately, I found that the book itself is not at all well organized as a whole. The author introduces various topics, looks at them briefly and then picks up the discussion haphardly, and sometimes repetitively, later on. Frequently, after a particular issue or topic is introduced, the reader struggles through a confusing discussion, only to be is left at a loss as to what point the author is trying make.... I eventually got the impression that Mr Yost is still mulling over a lot of conflicting theories and has not yet reached any settled (or convincing) conclusions over certain aspects of the case that he needs to properly consider.

All the above notwithstanding, I do not regret the money I paid for this work. It stands to be a fixed entry in the whole 'Ripper' genre.