The Big Book of Scandalous Australian Women

Bringing together bad women of every stripe and variety - the scandalous, the brash, the fearless, the downright nasty and some who just went a little bit wrong - in the one big book.

Some are wicked, some are scandalous, some are downright mean and ruthless and some just went a little bit sideways. Meet the bad women of Australia: the femmes who challenge our ideas of what women should be - together in the one big book. Tilly Devine, Mary Bryant, Helena Rubinstein, Lola Montez - these notorious women defied the restricted times they lived in, seducing men of power and betraying them, going from streetwalkers to standover merchants, rewriting their past as they rose to the top, or just taking to a life of crime with gusto.

Then there are the darker dames: women who have killed husbands, lovers, relatives, friends and children for a variety of reasons. The backyard abortionists, the poisoners, the women in lovers' pacts, the women who sought to protect themselves from violence. All of them deadly and fascinating. Profiled by Kay Saunders in Notorious Australian Women and Deadly Australian Women, the lives of these scandalous women are now available together in the one volume.

About the Author

Kay Saunders AM was Professor of History and Senator of the University of Queensland from 2002 to 2006. In 2001 she received the Medal of the National Museum of Australia and in 2006 was the recipient of the John Kerr Medal from the Royal Historical Society of Queensland.