The incredible story of Britain's female gangsters from the seventeenth century to the present day. Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, Ronnie Biggs, the Kray brothers... All have become folk heroes, glamorised and romanticised, even when they killed. But where are their female equivalents? Where are the women who led gangs of pickpockets, formed Victorian crime syndicates and launched nationwide shoplifting gangs? Queens of the Underworld reveals the incredible story of female gangsters from the 17th century to the present. From Moll Cutpurse who ruled the criminal underworld in Jacobean London, to Mary Carr who led the Forty Elephants Gang in Victorian England, and Shirley Pitts who formed Britain's most successful shoplifting gang of the 20th century, these were charismatic women at the top of their game. Female criminals have often been dismissed as either not 'real women' or not real criminals, and in the process their stories have been lost ? this book tells the truth about their lives for the first time.
