Notorious Australian Women

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.