Notorious Australian Women celebrates the lives of twenty of Australia's most fearless, brash and scandalous women.
There's Mary Bryant, the highway robber and First Fleeter who escaped in a row boat from Port Jackson to Timor with her two children; Lola Montez, the Irish born grande horizontale, who destroyed King Ludwig I of Bavaria; Ellen Tremayne and Marion Edwards, women who challenged the gender order and became men; Pamela Travers, who wrote Mary Poppins in between writing erotic poetry; and Tilley Devine, who went from streetwalker in London to wealthy Sydney Madame and standover merchant.
From bushrangers, courtesans and cross-dressers, to writers, designers, radicals and even a fascist or two, what these splendid rebels have in common is a determination to take their destinies in their own hands. In this interesting, lively and well-researched book, Kay Saunders reveals all the scandals, struggles, private battles, secret liaisons, intrigues, and more, of some of Australia's most extraordinary women in history.
